A Proper Cup of Tea

06/13/1999, Los Angeles, California

Today I had a meeting with some of my close friends in which we decided to embark on an awareness journey. To begin with we declared our agreement with all the spiritual teachers that life is a vehicle for waking up and that we each are in a life situation that we need to be in order to learn.  The question was how to respond to life situations and how to minimize the stress.

The help came from one of my favorite spiritual teachers Pema Chodron and her book "The Wisdom of No Escape".

According to her, there is no separation between sadness and happiness in life and we should not prefer one to the other.  We should be able to live fully with both and  hold both in our heart to experience balance and completeness.  This is what is behind rituals, carried on in different cultures. So whether it's making tea or doing other things it is a ritual in the sense of doing it properly while holding both the sadness and happiness in our heart.

"Our whole life could be a ritual.  We could learn to listen to the nature, we could reconnect to ourselves even if we are sad.  If we can hold it all in our heart then we can make a proper cup of tea.  Making a proper cup of tea means that you thoroughly and completely make that tea because you appreciate the tea and the boiling water and the fact that together they make something that's nourishing and delicious and that lifts one's spirit".


Can you make a proper cup of tea?