I have been into tea for a few years now and during the pandemic I've had the chance to go deep into methods, history and techniques. This is the first time I come cross with this spiritual, calming way of arranging the whole ceremony. This video made me aware that every movement and though will print an escence into the tea and the people who will drink it. My tea sessions will never be the same. Thank you a thousand times.
This video helped me re-evaluate my understanding of what it means to "stay with the tea". For me, staying with the tea does indeed mean samadhi. But what I have practiced for some time now is maintaining that samadhi even after I pass out the bowls or cups to guests. This has led me into situations in which I am very absorbed in my own experience and veru disconnected from the experiences of my guests. The last session I had was most comic of all: I was lost in samadhi, assured that my guest was in the same state, when really she was just wondering with each and every bowl how much more could her bladder take until she would be forced to go to the bathroom!
This video really helped me! I have done some Zen training and currently work at a tea shop. I was taught how to preform a gong fu ceremony but never with these pointers of how to hold the mind and body. ALL of the basics presented here have made the ceremony of serving tea much more meaningful to me. I'm looking forward to practicing tea in this way, with whole mind and body. Would love more content on this practice.
Love revisiting these videos! A very major step I have let slip in recent months is settling my heart before connecting with the kettle! This will be my focus in the coming weeks Thanks for the great wisdom
Thank you all people involved in to creating GTH content. It gives me a special moments and reminds me about my connection for our community. And this community is the source of inspiration and support in learning and serving to near ones. I want to be a better version on myself and tea helps me a lot in getting along with this send development project :) rising a bowl to all of you!
The oddest one for me was holding the kettle in my off hand, left for me, and one I'll be sure to practice in the morning. The one that hit me the most, however was the fourth, "still the heart." I spent much of my adult life as a telecommunications engineer for a large business and was, to say the least, task focused. This was useful as an engineer and by far more useful for the company than for me and my life as a human being. But now I'm retired and have put aside Kung Zi (Confucius) for Lao Zi (Lao Tzu). Still my old task focused orientation sneaks into my life, into my Tai Chi practice and meditation and tea practice. This keeps me out of the present moment as I am thinking of the next step and, for me the main cause of spilling tea or breaking teaware. Thank-you for the reminder of that basic.
I've been an avid tea drinker for quite a few years (mostly sticking to English teas because of preference) and I've never heard any of these tips. I'm going to try these a bit later and see if they make the experience better.
This morning before I watched this video, I was in a really bad headspace and made some very poor tea. This afternoon, I focused on these basics, and it really made me more focused on the tea instead of everything else. Holding the heavy kettle in my left hand definitely ately increased my awareness and focus because I don’t use it often. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you for all the tips .. I particularly resonate with holding the kettle with the non dominant hand .. I will be exploring / rearranging / experimenting with my current Teaware setup .. seeing if I can feel any differences whilst employing these 5 basics .. Thank you so much .. Joy to you and Global Tea Hut .. :) Xx
Thank you for this lesson. Just found your channel. Just starting to learn how to make loose leaf tea. Will try to follow your direction and see how it works for me.
I had been practicing tea brewing my whole year without any basics mentioned in this video and I struggle sometimes but cannot figure out what I did wrong. After watching this I realized that sometimes I did not stay with the tea, tea was not the center of attention and I did not balance my body and mind well, this tea basic is the true basic of every brewing and I think they are what I were missing.
As someone who is mostly ambidextrous, it's hard for me to work out what my "off hand" is. I write and play stringed instruments left-handed, but I tend to hold tennis rackets or pots and pans with my right hand. I tend to just use the hand which feels it will do the pouring best on the day, and that works well for me rather than obsessing over which hand I "should" be using. I focus on pouring properly with whichever hand I am using.
As you were talking about step 5 and staying with the tea, I was envisioning the slow drop going into water and coming back up with the halo ripple. The sound in all of it is almost as though the tea speaks to us so it's an almost silent symbiotic conversation between us and the tea
Another great video! While watching this video it made me think of mastering a 'form' in Taijiquan or any other martial art. In a sense this is similar to learning how to brew 'gong fu' style: 'at first the movements are very crude and the practioner has no feeling or idea of the internal aspects of it, but after repeating the outer movements of the form a lot of times, they become almost second nature and then the practioner starts to sense the internal movements that come with the external movements...'
Actually it's a quote by me, Eelke Halbertsma, I have no idea why I put it in between quotation marks... :) The knowledge underlying it is ofcourse not mine, but can be discovered by everyone who follows the path of spiritual awakening, at some point... By the way, just saw a video on facebook of a tea ceremony whereby the person performing the ceremony only used his right hand... It looked really weird and unbalanced.. I am glad I watched your video before watching it, so I know now what's not right... Going to practice using my left hand and arm when handling the tea kettle from now on..
All of this has to happen in the context of what your body is capable of. Just a for instance: through lack of mindfulness I have temporarily lost most of the strength in my right arm, so--some things I can do, some are beyond me. 'improvise, adapt, overcome' as the Marines say.
To hold kettle in off hand make me more cautious about movements as well. Right hand can go on autopilot mode and off hand becomes more thorough once in motion.
