Morning tea at Ramona Falls on Mt. Hood
Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn’s meditation on drinking tea in his How to Eat book of the Mindfulness Essential series touched my reality this morning. He writes that the whole universe is in a cup of tea. If we can drink the tea while being present in the moment, we can have a spiritual experience.
So I picked up my early morning cup of tea and smelled it. I smelled the coconut plant, the tea plant, the cacao plant, the cinnamon plant—all the ingredients in my special dessert tea.
Bee on buckwheat flower
Then I thought about the buckwheat honey I had melted into the drink: the bees buzzing, collecting pollen from flowers, making the honey, the beekeeper who harvested it, bottled it, the money that I exchanged for it and the delivery process, even with its pollution and waste. But I’d rather think about the bees buzzing around the flowers.
Mother cow with calf drinking her milk
Then I thought of the milk, my half and half. The cow that provided the milk, the calf that it was meant for, the farm, the farmer, the collection process, shipping and selling it to me at a grocery store for the concept of money. I realized that my mug, even though it’s from Starbucks, is made of earth clay and pigments for the glaze.
And last of all, the water—the elemental water that comes from the rain, the clouds, the sky and the earth, as Thay reminds us in his meditation. The rivers coming off the glaciers on Mt. Hood where I live. I’ve hiked up high on the mountain and seen the source of the rivers that flow down to the foothills by my home. I’ve seen the Sandy River from its beginning to its end where it merges with the Columbia River in the Gorge that then flows out to the Pacific Ocean at Astoria, Oregon. My tea is of that same water. Technically, the water comes from an underground well that taps into the water table, so it’s deeply encased in the earth as well. Because we’re on a volcano, in some places that water is heated by the fires also deeply encased within the earth, and when it hits the air, it makes steam that we can enjoy. All four elements are present.
Burnt Lake on Mt. Hood, Oregon
How to have a safe fire in your living room (pellet stove). Bonus cup of tea pictured!
Even though the fire in my living room is from an electric pellet stove, it is still connected to all. Even though the animals from around the world are projected onto my flat screen TV from a YouTube channel, they are still animals and connected to all. All I have to do to see real animals is say hello to my dogs and watch the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks in my backyard. We are blessed to have this life and these connections. We are all the universe, together.
Thich Nhat Hahn’s meditation:
Something as simple and ordinary as drinking a cup of tea can bring us great joy and help us feel our connection to the Earth. The way we drink our tea can transform our lives if we truly devote our attention to it.
Sometimes we hurry through our daily tasks, looking forward to the time when we can stop and have a cup of tea. But then when we’re finally sitting with the cup in our hands, our mind is still running off into the future and we can’t enjoy what we’re doing; we lose the pleasure of drinking our tea. We need to keep our awareness alive and value each moment of our daily life. We may think our other tasks are less pleasant than drinking tea. But if we do them with awareness, we may find that they’re actually very enjoyable.
Drinking a cup of tea is a pleasure we can give ourselves every day. To enjoy our tea, we have to be fully present and know clearly and deeply that we are drinking tea.
When you lift your cup, you may like to breathe in the aroma. Looking deeply into your tea, you see that you are drinking fragrant plants that are the gift of Mother Earth. You see the labor of the tea pickers; you see the luscious tea fields and plantations in Sri Lanka, China, and Vietnam. You know that you are drinking a cloud; you are drinking the rain. The tea contains the whole universe.