Tea Ceremony Is A Holistic Approach To Meditation

Meditation is a way to bring happiness and balance into your life. But is simply shutting down the mind and accepting things the way they are sufficient to reach a profound level of satisfaction and joy?

Most 20th Century self-help books define 4 areas in which you need to create balance to reach true satisfaction.

These four areas are:

• The physical: your body.
• The mind: your brain.
• The emotional: your heart.
• The etherial: your spirit.

Few practices actually allow you to nourish all four areas at the same time. But from experience I can say that the practice of the tea ceremony provides you with all the tools to nourish as well the body, as the brain, as the heart, and also the spirit.

I actually like to refer to the tea chamber as 'the gym of the spirit.'

That is because, practicing the tea ceremony directs your energies and attention in such a way that it balances the spirit. Simply the practice itself puts you in connection with ancient, timeless and universal values and principles that are nourishing and vital for a healthy spirit.

But this doesn't come about without balance in the other three areas as well.

The heart

The tea ceremony also trains and nourishes the heart. The practice itself cultivates deep gratitude, not only for the presence of the people you share the tea chamber with, but for everything including existence itself.

The famous expression ‘ichigo ichie’ captures this notion beautifully! Every moment needs to be cherished because life is limited. Practicing tea ceremony is essentially a way to cultivate this state of mind and to nourish deep-felt appreciation for every moment, every encounter and for every possibility that is granted to you simply because you are alive, here and now.

The mind

The tea ceremony is an expansive practice that incorporates, with some exceptions, almost the entire body of Japanese culture and tradition. Learning any other practice will hardly give you the same opportunity to trigger your intellectual curiosity as much as tea ceremony does. Training in the tea ceremony accommodates learning about Japan's cultural traditions, seasonal observances, happenings in nature, the different arts, literature, history, and so much more.

The body

Tea ceremony is also highly physical as it requires diligent practice in highly codified physical movements. It takes diligent practice to master the motions and to train the body in order to execute the motions without it seeming forced at all, but seemingly natural. In the end it should become natural.

And when your execution of the service of tea becomes natural, that is only because you have attained balance and mastery in all the aforementioned areas as well.

But the goal of the tea ceremony is not to reach a certain level of mastery at all.

The goal of the tea ceremony is simply practice itself. Just as going to the gym needs to be kept up in order to maintain your physique, the practice of tea ceremony too needs to be continued in order to cultivate, but also maintain a pure, welcoming and grateful state of being.

It is like eating or going to the toilet. You can't expect that now that you have eaten 5 times, you are good at it and don't have to do it anymore because you have mastered the skill. It needs to happen continuously, and for most on a daily basis.

The true purpose of the tea ceremony lies in the continuous practice of the tradition itself, rather than in the mere demonstration of a single service alone.

It needs to be trained. it needs to be maintained.

In my next post I will show you how beautiful the result of total balance between body, mind, heart and spirit truly is. Don't miss it.