With some creativity, there are endless possible variations on a
same theme. Drinking tea and composing a Cha Xi for each tea, each moment, each mood is never boring. Making the present count more than the past or the future is one of the key benefits/teaching of
meditation. A well composed Cha Xi also contains this message: focus on the present moment and learn to feel your tea (life) with your senses and your heart rather than with a timer and a scale.
PS: Last week,
Teaparker met Zhang Tian Fu, a famous 101 years old tea master from Fujian (China). Click the
link to see how he looks past 100 years old! (He is the best evidence that tea is healthy!) Teaparker asked him if he drinks the first brew (which many call rinse and don't drink). "Yes, unless I think the leaves are dirty. I only rinse some old puerhs." We wish him many more cups of excellent tea!
Here's to the health-giving properties of tea! And thank you for the lovely seasonal arrangement.
ReplyDeleteThe Tang poet Lu Tong sums it up very nicely here in his seven bowls of tea. Drinking good tea here and now.
ReplyDeleteThe first bowl moistens my lips and throat
The second bowl overcomes my loneliness
The third bowl searches my barren entrails, but to find therein some five thousand scrolls
The fourth bowl breaks me out into a slight perspiration, and all of life's unhappiness evaporates through my pores
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones
The sixth bowl calls me to the gods
The seventh bowl could not be drunk, only feel the breath of the cool wind in my sleeves
Where is Mount Penglai? For I, Yu Chuan Zi would like to ride on this cool breeze that will take me home.
Thank you Steph.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Miss Tea Delight, for reminding us of this classic tea poem.
Your settings and your photos are SO wonderful as usual. I have been drinking the topquality 2011 Gao Shan Oolong the last days and have been high on chaqi every time. If you like, see my blog again with photoes of YOUR tea, http://thebloggen.wordpress.com/
ReplyDelete