Favourite Tea Wisdom

There is no trouble so great that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.
Bernard-Paul Heroux

Where there’s tea, there’s hope—
Sir Arthur Rivers

Incidentally, if any of you happen to be book lovers, www.librarything.com has a Tea! group with a long and interesting string of “quo-TEA-tions.”

http://www.stashtea.com/quotes.htm

It is impossible to know the taste of tea without first drinking it.
Studying tea will not help.
Meditating on tea will not help.
Listening to others talk about tea will not help.
Reading sutras about tea will not help.
Smelling the aroma of tea will not help.
Sitting blissfully in samahdi around tea will not help.
Seeking tea in exotic countries will not help.
Having profound insights about tea will not help.
Opening the heart in deep life-changing ways will not help.
Going inside a tea shop will not help.
All of these things are mere confusion and delaying tactics.
To know the taste of tea you must drink it. There is no other way.

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and philosopher,
Thich Nhat Hanh,
writes about enjoying a good cup of tea.

You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.

Only in the awareness of the present,
can your hands feel the pleasant warmth of the cup.

Only in the present, can you savor the aroma,
taste the sweetness,
appreciate the delicacy.

If you are ruminating about the past,
or worrying about the future,
you will completely miss the experience of enjoying the cup of tea.

You will look down at the cup,
and the tea will be gone.

Life is like that.

If you are not fully present,
you will look around and it will be gone.

You will have missed the feel,
the aroma,
the delicacy and beauty of life.

It will seem to be speeding past you.

The past is finished. Learn from it and let it go.

The future is not even here yet.
Plan for it,
but do not waste your time worrying about it.

Worrying is worthless.

When you stop ruminating about what has already happened,
when you stop worrying about what might never happen,
then you will be in the present moment.

Then you will begin to experience joy in life.

Teaspoon,
Thay has truly expressed what we all desire…that is to live in the present and to enjoy the beauty of life.

Thay is such a wonderfu poet – thanx for bringing me to the present.

The first cup moistens my lips and throat.
The second cup breaks my loneliness.
The third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some thousand volumes of odd ideographs.
The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration – all the wrongs of life pass out through my pores.
At the fifth cup I am purified. The sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals.
The seventh cup – ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of the cool wind that raises in my sleeves. Where is Elysium? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither.
~Lu Tung, “Tea-Drinking”

Oh, I think my current icon fits in wonderfully here (although it is nothing more than a dumbed down paraphrasing). Although the quote, I suppose, isn’t nearly as thoughtful—and certainly, wasn’t even said by a “real” person, but a character.

The Doctor, to be exact. Who?

“But you should never turn down tea, when it’s offered. It’s impolite, and impoliteness is how wars start.”

“If this is coffee, then please bring me some tea. If this is tea, then bring me some coffee.”

Abraham Lincoln

“A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards.” ~From “Pooh’s Little Instruction Book”