Today, we shall meditate on a cup of tea
This morning if you went with us in walking meditation, we saw Thay drinking his tea
peacefully and happily
Drinking tea is also a meditation
When you look into the tea, what did you see?
I see a cloud
I see a cloud floating in the tea
Yesterday the tea was a cloud up in the sky
but today it has become the tea in my glass.
And when you look up at the blue sky, you don't see your cloud anymore
And you might say: Oh! my cloud has died.
In fact it has not died. It has become the tea in Thay's cup
so
when I look
mindfully into the tea, in the tea I see my cloud. I say: 'Hello my cloud! I see you.'
And when I drink my tea, I drink my cloud
You know you are made of cloud. At least 70 percent of you are cloud
If you take the cloud out of you, there's no you left
So cloud is a good subject of meditation
And the cloud has a good time traveling
when it
falls down. It does not die. It just become
the Cloud under the rain.
The Cloud can never die
The cloud can become snow, or rain,
or ice.
But the cloud can never die.
So
the cloud become the rain the rain become
the creek on a Mountain and the creek
flow down and become the river and the river goes the sea and
heat generated by the Sun helped
the water in Ocean evaporates
and become cloud again
so the cloud has a good time traveling and
Wearing all kind of forms, wearing all kind of appearance. You know
This, the cloud in the cup of tea and Thay is going to drink this tea
And what will it become? This tea
It will become a dharma talk
My dear little cloud I am drinking you
Well, you will become one with me
And thanks to you, I'm going to give a dharma talk to the children
Because I know how to drink my tea mindfully
That is why I can see the cloud in my tea, and I can see that the cloud is very helpful
to help Thay to give the dharma talk
Without the cloud no dharma talk is possible
Remember you are made of cloud also.
At least 70% of you are cloud
so
Smile to the cloud
in your tea
Smile the cloud in your body
And next time when you are about to eat an ice-cream, look
Look at the ice-cream, and you see a cloud in your ice-cream
I think you can
And you take two, three seconds and look into the ice-cream. You can see your cloud in ice-cream
Before you eat the ice-cream
Smile to the cloud in your ice cream first. That is meditation
That's easy, very pleasant thing to do
I'll show you something else
I do calligraphy. I draw circles
And you know something? There is it, there is a cloud inside. There is also the tea inside.
You need to have some time to look
This is a sheet of paper, some ink, a seal
but if you look deeply
and I know it
there is a cloud in this
and there is tea also, I will explain to you how
Doing calligraphy for Thay is a practice of meditation.
And each session of calligraphy begins with the tea. I never write calligraphy without having a cup of tea first
I need the tea to help me in order to be awake,
in order to do calligraphy well
You know the tea and meditation, they have been together for many thousand years
The Chinese monks,
the Vietnamese monks who practice sitting meditation, they found out that tea leaves,
and they found out that if you drink
tea and then you can stay awake. You don't fall sleep during your sitting meditation
So Zen and tea have been going together for many many years
And that is why as a practitioner of meditation,
I always have tea as my companion
That is why before doing calligraphy, I have the time to enjoy my tea
And do you know that I always mix some tea in my ink.
In my Chinese ink
Therefore when you look deeply into the ink you see the tea inside. This is the truth
I always mix
tea with ink, but
if you look more deeply, you see something else
While doing calligraphy, I practice mindful breathing
I hold a brush and I breathe in
one second, two seconds, three seconds and during that time,
breathing in, I make about one-third of the circle
So there is breathing in one-third of the circle
Mindful practice of calligraphy.
And when I breathe out, I finish
I do the rest of the circle. It takes about five seconds to finish.
Three seconds for breathing in, three seconds for breathing out mindfully and I finish the circle
And that is why when you look at this calligraphy
not only you can see a cloud
not only you can see the tea
but you can see my breath inside
I have bought and show you some calligraphy today
First,
something you already know : a cloud never die
The nature of the cloud is the nature of no birth and no death
looking on the surface you may think that a cloud can be born and can die
but looking deeply you find out that
a cloud can never die. The nature of the cloud is the nature of no birth and no death
And in this retreat we are going to meditate on this
tomorrow and after tomorrow
our true nature of no birth and no death
A cloud, remember?
Can become snow or rain or ice, but a cloud can never die. Remember?
And this one you already know : smile to the cloud in your tea. It is very nice.
if you are, if you have this
calligraphy in your tea room
it will remind you to practice breathing and enjoy your tea more
By the way, there is a cloud also in your coffee
And you know something? When you cry, when you cry
there is a cloud in the your tears
And maybe the tea that you drunk yesterday
Has become part of your teas
And that is why I also wrote:
The tears I shed yesterday have become rain
And the rain is going to become the tea and the tea will become tears again
if you don't practice
You do not know how to handle your suffering and you'll continue to cry a lot, there will be a lot of tears
The tears I shed yesterday have become rain
Tomorrow we will have a dharma talk for children also
So now if you hear the small bell, stand up, bow to the sangha and go out and continue your practice