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Global TeaHutNewsletter #16, May 2013T he seasons change round us, measuring ourlives Summer unolds again... Te GrainRains are ending in early May and as thesummer opens the rice silos ll up, as does Nature:

with sounds, colors and lie. We return to opening and

abundance, and at rst the curtains o cold rain are onlybriey pulled apart to disclose warm, balmy days thatmake us think summer has arrived, only to be ollowedby another cool, rainy day that we must give thanks oras it will ll our granaries, and then our bellies. As wementioned last month, this makes choosing tea eachday exciting, as we move towards greener, lighter teason the days that blossom like summer and return to thelast arewell to darker teas on the last exhales o coolnessthat come with the April Grain Rains.

ea is harvested up the mountain in springand down in the winter. Tis means that lower alti-tude teas are harvested earlier in the spring, and thehigher up you go, the later the harvest. As your receivethis newsletter, thousands o pickers will be up on theslopes careully plucking this years tea. Raise a cup tothem; honor their hard work, or their energy is in eve-ry leathey select which ones to pluck, and so detlycut them so as not to bruise the lea or lose its watertoo quickly. In aiwan, tea harvesting will continue allthroughout May, as so many tea arms are extremely

high, even 2500 meters above the sea.ea armers will be processing tea this wholemonth. In places like Wuyi Mountain in Fujian, arm-ers will hardly sleep or weekscatching a nap o anhour here and there. Te tea will have to be monitoredday and night. Tey will sacrice this time to share tea

with the world or the rest o the year. Large quantitieso tea will need to be plucked ater the rains and they

will have to watch careully, as waiting even a day toolong can mean the loss o a crop, and too early willreduce the quality. Te rst pluck is done in silence,

with great reverence. Te master accompanies the pick-ers to the trees and they give oerings to the spirits whoprotect the land, thanking them or whatever has beengiven. Ater the leaves come back, night and day willbe devoted to their processing. ea sheds, aboriginal

huts, actories and armers are all bustling with tea thismonth!

May is the Plum Moon in the lunar calendar. Itis a time or bounty, or being outdoors and or move-mentin Nature and in people. We begin to eat more

raw vegetables and ruits, and to stay lighter, sheddingthe extra at we put on in the winter by stretching outour bones and moving more beneath the daily warmingsun. It is a good time to ast, starting the shit in season

with a break in our digestion beore we move towardslighter ood. It is also a time or harvest in rice and tea,both our staples, which means that we should exerciseour gratitude with the stretching we do to bring ourbody out o the winter stillness. What are you grateulor this month? Do you see that the Grain Rains pro-duce the grain that enables and encourages civilization?Do you respect the tea armers out in the sun lovingevery lea, and the master processors who wont sleepat all this month because their entire annual incomeis dependent upon the hard work they are doing thismonth? You honor the armer by converting the riceinto good energyhard work towards improving ourshared world! You honor the tea armer and processorby thoroughly loving the tea, and by using its lessons togrow spiritually, as medicine or the heart!

In Miao Li county, the ung owers cover all

the mountains in white and people come rom all overaiwan and beyond to look at them scattered acrossthe hills like snow, covering the ground like sweet rain.Tere is a estival celebrating this glory o Nature, whichthe local Hakka people also regard as the beginning osummer and a time o gratitude.

May is also an important month or Bud-dhists around the world as it heralds the celebration oVesakha, which is the Buddhas birthday. Tis year italls on the teenth day o the Plum Moon accord-ing to the lunar calendar, which is May 24th. Use this

month to study some o the Buddhas teachings, andhonor him by nding them in your own heart. Maybethis months tea will inspire you to seek a bit o medita-tive space, and resting in your Buddha-nature you cannd your own birthday as well

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Who We AreWe are a non-prot organization dedicated to promoting, cultivating and expressing an awakening oharmony through tea. We believe that tea wisdom which has no connection to any nancial motiva-tion, good or bad, is very necessary in this modern world and thereore strive to build schools, cent-ers and other tea spaces in the true, ancient spirit o tealeaves, water and wisdom shared withoutany personal prot. Tere are several acets o what we do. Below are our main and current projects,branching rom our roots outward:

Global ea HutGlobal ea Hut is one o our main sources oincome, helping to support all o our projects.Members around the world donate money and

then tea armers, merchants or tea lovers donatetea. We connect the two git-givers. For a mini-mum donation o twenty dollars a month, mem-bers receive a special tea, a newsletter and a git.

All the work involved is voluntary and the teais donated, keeping expenses to a minimum. Wehave ound that this Global ea Hut connects tealovers around the world, and that i you share inthe tea with a desire to connect, you will clearlyeel the community in the bowl. In joining Glob-al ea Hut, you can help support all our projects,

drink a unique living tea each month, be a parto this community, read about the teas, this tradi-tion and a lie o tea and stay connected to ourenergy and activities here and abroad. For moreinormation visit:www.globalteahut.org

ea Sage Hut

Tis is our current center, located in MiaoLi, aiwan. Each year, we host over one hun-dred visitors rom all around the world. At the

ea Sage Hut, guests come and drink tea, eat veg-etarian ood and have a bed should they need it.

We have weekly tea classes and daily meditationsessions each morning and evening. We also helpcoordinate travel around aiwan and put guestsin touch with tea armers, tea and teaware shopsand events. All instruction, room and board, andhugs are ree. We operate on a donation basis,and guests are ree to leave as much or as little asthey like or uture guests, knowing that their visit

was supported by past guests and hoping to pay

the experience orward. For more inormationvisit:www.teasagehut.org

Light Meets Life

In December, we were donated three acres ogorgeous land in the mountains o Da Hu,aiwan. Te land has a waterall, sakura trees,clis, views and abundant verdure. Light MeetsLie will be the name o our uture, expandedcenter. It will be a great place to learn aboutand drink tea as well as to meditate. We plan tohave an ecological, organic tea garden or educa-tional purposes and a communal arm to growour own ood. Our new center will be run onsimilar principals to that o the ea Sage Hut,

only on a larger scale. For more inormationvisit the Global ea Hut website and click onthe Our Center link at the top o the page.

Te Leaf

Our ree, online magazine about tea hasnthad a new issue in over a year, but it will berestarted very soon with an all-new ninth is-sue. Te Lea ocuses more on tea inor-mation, dierentiating it rom these morecasual/personal GH newsletters. It is currentlyelectronic only, though we oer ree hard copiesto the visually impaired. For more inormationvisit:www.the-lea.org

http://www.globalteahut.org/http://www.teasagehut.org/http://www.the-leaf.org/http://www.the-leaf.org/http://www.teasagehut.org/http://www.globalteahut.org/

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In this day and age, simplicity and emptiness havebecome the rarest commodities. Finding thespace to be ree rom clutter, noise or disruption

is challenging indeed. In Chinese, the word or a sage, aholy man, is mountain man (shienren), becausethere was a time where the only thing one had to do inorder to seek isolation and peace was to head up intothe mountains. Te Chinese clis and crags were abovethe clouds, and ree o the dust o the city. It was as-sumed that the only reason someone would retire romcivilization was to seek spiritual insight, and so anyone

you were likely to encounter in the mountains wouldbe holy. Also, holy in Daoist philosophy could not beother than Naturesagehood by denition is a har-mony with Nature. And where better to nd such peaceand harmony than in the pristine mountains?

Tese days, things are dierent. We must seekthe mountain within. Ultimately, so did the sages oold. Tere is an old saying that it is easy to be a sagein the mountain, greater still in the city; but the high-est master is at peace in the palace. External quietudehelps us to achieve inner stillness, but in the end it ismuch more benecial to rest in a stillness that is notdependent upon external circumstancesa peace thatcan weather the storm. Otherwise, your peace is ragile,shattered by the rst airplane that ies overhead.

In the Daoist way, peace is about stillness andsimplicity. urbid water is still clear in nature; it is onlybecause it has been upset that it has become muddied.o still the water we have but to leave it or some time.Like that, it is our nature to be bright and serene, i werest in the simple and quiet. And it is oten the sim-

plest things that bring the most joy and lasting peace:like sitting in meditation, quietly walking in Nature ordrinking tea. Tese are also the gits that bring us closerto each other. In the world, we compete and arm our-selves. We get busy achieving and accumulating, butin the spiritual world it is necessary to let go, step backand nd the space to appreciate the simple; and thesimpler the better.

ea of the Month

Tis months tea is as simple as it gets. It is agreen tea we call Calm Light. Tis tea is an or-ganic green tea rom Nantou in Central aiwan. It isrom a pure area, where all the trees are organic. It was

contributed by our dear riend Master sai, who hasshared so many teas with us. You can read more abouthim in the April 2012 newsletter, which is on our web-site.

A lot o arms in aiwan would have dicultyachieving organic certication in the West since theycannot control what their neighbors do and aiwan is asmall island, meaning that nearby, inorganic arms willinuence theirs. Still, we must support the revolutionthat is happening island-wide. Tis months tea, how-ever, is rom a pristine area where there are no nearby

arms, making it thoroughly and completely clean.Green tea is oten made exclusively o buds,

but this is a simpler tea that includes leaves. It is madewith a casual air. Green tea is processed to reduce oxida-tion as much as possible. I it is made rom only buds,it will be picked and immediately ried or steamed toarrest oxidation and de-enzyme. (Tis process is liter-ally called kill green because it kills green enzymesthat make tea bitter.) O course, the moment the teais picked it starts oxidizing, so completely oxidation-ree tea is impossible, but green tea is as close as it gets.

However, when green tea is made rom bud and leasets or just leaves, then it is allowed to wither or a shorttime. Tis sotens the leaves or processing. When greentea is made only o buds there is also no rollingtheshaping is done during the rying/steaming. Our tea

was picked, withered, pan ried and rolled beore be-ing oven-dried. In the worldly sense, this tea is simple,cheap and lower quality; but in Zen our weeds aretreasures and our treasures oten weeds. Besides, ash-ion always seeks the amboyant, missing the great joyto be had in the unadorned.

Calm Light is the simplest o teas. It is almostlike drinking waterclear, simple and open. It doesntleave a strong impression. It doesnt explode in yourmouth; it moves through like a sot, cooling breeze thatenters unannounced through an open window on aSpring day. It moves like the Dao itsel.

We suggest you brew this tea in a bowl, perhapsoutdoors. It is a tea that you should denitely enjoy insilence, and in relation to Nature. I your riends joinyou, you may want to set the intention to have a ew

bowls in silence. It may also go with some quiet, peace-ul music like the CD we have included as this monthsgit. Put a ew leaves in the bowl and add water. Youmay want to use slightly cooler water, like shrimp eye.Hotter water or conversations will overpower this sub-

Your Tea of the Month, May 2013Calm Light (), Spring 2013 Green ea, Nantou, aiwan

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tle tea. Te tea will merge with the quiet and ll the teasession with an extraordinary ordinarinesswith Zen.

It is nice to end such a tea session with a bowlo water. You may also want to try using a single bowl,no matter how many guests you have. Passing a singlebowl around is uniying and creates a dierent kind oheart space. Te nal sips o water remind us where the

tea began and where it endsrom out o Nature andin returning, through us, to the Dao. Tere is an oldsaying that true riendship is like clear water; it leavesno trace.

Calm Light is calm and it is bright! You willnd the tea cooling, with a sot Yin energy that uplitsyouQi rushing upwards rom eet to head. Tere isnot much to speak o as ar as avor and aroma, otherthan to say it is simple and rereshing, clean and puriy-ing. It washes out the mouth and palate and rees us, as

only simplicity can do. May you nd in this monthsbowl a simple, still mind. And may that empower youto act rom that center!

As we mentioned in previous months, we recommend lettingthe tea get over its jet lag. Let it sit a week or two and become

acclimatized.

ea of the Month

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Every tea has its own unique personality andpower, making it impossible to compare teasrom one genre to that o another, or even

those within the same genre. Puerh teas, or example,are oten simple and direct, yet powerul and ull o

wisdom, like the unrened pithiness o an old villagewoman. Wuyi Rock teas, on the other hand, carry usup to the most rened, delicate peaks, requiring o us agreat deal o sensitivity, and all the elegant sophistica-tion o the philosophical conversation you might have

with a woman in the city. How to compare them? And

yet, Green ea is in a sense my avorite genre o tea, andI am so pleased that we are sharing some with you thismonth, and especially this one, which has long been aavorite o ours.

One o the best things about Green ea is thatit heralds the arrival o spring. Its time to come crawl-ing out o our caves, blink our eyes, take o our shoesand socks and run on the grass under the sun and eelthe warm dirt between our toes again. Hooray! Tereis very little processing required to make Green ea, soit is also one o the rst teas to become available in thespring season, but theres more to it than that. Cometo think o it, its Spring which heralds the coming oGreen ea, since the tea wishes to be drunk at this timeo year. Green ea is cooling, light, rereshing, and at itsbest when it is as resh as possible; as near to the time

when it was still there on the bush or tree basking inthe sun as you can get it. (Actually, I really love agedGreen ea too. However, this has to be considered as atotally dierent genre o tea, since its not really greenanymore.)

I tend to eel nostalgic when I drink Greeneaits my oldest tea riend, being the rst tea thatever spoke to me, and I oten have the eeling that I mayhave drunk a great deal more o it than I can even re-member. It takes me back somewhere; it uplits me andencircles me with its gentleness and simplicity. Greenea, to me, is an embodiment o light, and drinkingit is a communion with light. I eel it lling the cellso my body, I hear it singing through my soul and myspirit joins in its playul, gentle dance. Green ea isplayul, and it reminds me o a time when sunbeams in-

spired me to play with them, or the way light dances atthe bottom o a clear pool o water. Green ea still hasa sun-inspired playulness and wants to share it withus. As a choice o teas to get you out there brewing inNature or the rst time this year, which I wrote about

last month, I couldnt recommend a better choice. Tistea loves to be drunk outside on a sunny day, or in yourtea space at whatever time o day is brightest.

Green ea loves music that is reminiscent olight as well. I personally enjoy plucked string instru-ments with little or no accompaniment: Simple Gu

Xing music or a harp perhaps. I particularly enjoy analbum I have o Celtic strings, and another that is avery delicate duet o ute and hammer dulcimer. Justthink o any music you have that reminds you o theplay o light on water and you will have a good match

or this months tea. ( Ill be sure to post a ew o myspecic avorites up in the tea o the month section oour orums this month, and I hope you will share someo yours with us as well!)

Like a lot o Green teas, being so simply pro-cessed and lacking pretension, this tea enjoys beingmade in the oldest way, leaves and water in a bowl.However, I strongly encourage you to make a bit o itin your teapot as well, as I have enjoyed many transcen-dental sessions with this tea in that way as well. Teleaves are a bit smaller this year than they were in the

past. No matter how or where you enjoy this tea, I amso happy to be sharing it with you and participating inyour sharing o it with yoursel and others, and hope tohear rom some o you about it as Spring unolds andarises without and within us this year. May your everysip be lled with Love and Light!

Do not gulp the tea, but sip it slowly allowing

its ragrance to ll your mouth. Tere is no needto have any special attitude while drinking ex-cept one o thankulness. Te nature o the teaitsel is that o no-mind. It does not discrimi-nate and make dierences. It is just as it is.

Pojong Sunim

Herald of SpringArticle by Kaiya

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Feeling ProudArticle by Dan Smith

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Growing up in a small Midwestern town, Iexperienced many maniestations o pride.

And I think what someone eels pride orand how they express it says so much about a personand their ethos. Teres the type o pride that one ex-periences rom a traditional conservative ather; pro-tecting his ace and eeling aith in the Protestant

work ethic, with a generally narrow mind. Te prideo a loving mother, who may cry with joy or her son

who won a soccer game or acted in the school play.I recently was looking through some old photographs

and came across one that captured a deer carcass hang-ing rom a tree in the ront yard o our amily home.

Amazed at the reminder o my roots, I recalled the ro-bust pride in deer hunting that many men in Americaeel. Tere were sports teams; with a zeal oten border-ing on madness that their members and ans may eel.Black pride; White pride; Id also heard about Brownand Proud or immigrants rom south o the border.I couldnt identiy with any o that. Another obviousone was national pride or America and what it suppos-edly stood or. ears may wash the aces o grown men

when theyve just heard the national anthem. I movedon to the army and elt conused and rebellious aboutan unquestioning pride in cruelty and destruction. Iobserved passively and didnt identiy much with anyo these orms o pride. I hadnt heard o Nihilism yetbut maybe I elt it anyway. I then moved on to a univer-sity city. Tere, I witnessed pride in political aliations,philosophies, sexual orientation, environmentalism, artcliques and social progressiveness. Tese all seemed tobe more noble causesthings were looking up in the

world at 21.I elt inspired, so I moved to Caliornia. I saidgoodbye to my riends and amily in pursuit o a be-longing that was a little more spacious than the Amer-ican Dream that Id experienced thus ar. Yes, muchmore than distance distinguishes Caliornia rom Mid-dle America. Tere, you nd pride or Caliornia, ratherthan the nation. Wow, theres pride elt in shopping ororganic vegetables at the armers market, eating exoticoods, acquiring knowledge or experience o oreigncultures, spirituality, Redwood trees, a successul res-

taurant I worked at, Asian pride now too and even thepride in pung tu with riendsit was all wonder-ul. It was a lot o new inuence and it all seemed a lothealthier.

At the restaurant I worked at, there was a dish-washer nicknamed Akbar or Te Great and he was,in his own way. He had steely eyes and seldom smiled,but when he did, it was natural and came rom his heart

without reservation. He didnt complain and he did hisjob with patience. He was a practitioner oWing Chun,a type o boxing kung u and had a teacher o whom heoten shared stories or quotes. It was clear that his liehad direction because o this kung u and he thoughtvery highly o his master. Tis direction was sure, andin sharp contrast to that o most people. It was soon

clear to all that he met that he was the Wing Chun guy.He was content to practice his skill, his art, take on stu-dents and share it, and wash dishes as a routine to makea little necessary money. Washing dishes wasnt just ahumdrum job to pay the bills though, and it wasnt sep-arate rom his lie o kung u. He diligently maintainedhis posture with skillul movements, minimizing waste-ul steps. He shared knowledge on a variety o topics,but especiallyWing Chun. He loved it and had aith inhis teacher as a messenger o a great skill: a Dao andan art o lie. He didnt criticize other kung u tradi-

tions. He respected and noted their merits but clearlymaintained that Wing Chun was more ecient, directand skillul. Most people didnt care one way or anotherand he recognized this with no oense. He wasnt aliveto convince people o his path, just to practice it. Tisis maybe the most distinguishing eature o this type otrue, innocent pride: the people who eel it dont haveany desire to prove it to themselves, nor anyone else.It just comortably is. It is dened by its presence andmakes itsel present right away, but without preaching,opposition, disruption or distortionlike a ne tea.

Looking back on my lie, this was the rsttime I had ever met someone who had such pride intheir lie, their way. And it had all the mysticism o theEast in it. I had seen this in movies and video games,read about it in books, but this was the rst time I had

witnessed it ace to ace. Experience really is the truestteacher. I spoke with him and took a ew private lessonsat his humble home. He taught me the basics and there

was some enrichment, but I didnt pursue that path, asI was still too ungrounded, driting with the clouds.

Maybe it just didnt call to me.Many years later, ea called me to aiwan. Iam ortunate to have ound my teacher and connec-tion to a tradition. Im gaining experience, wisdom andeeling joy. Tere is an intimate communion with tea

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that reaches into every acet, every corner o lie. It hasbeen some three years now and Ive just recently realizedthat Ive matured enough to know the true, innocentpride o Akbar, Te Great. I was recently introduced asa practitioner o tea to a circle o students on a com-plementary path. As we drank tea, I noticed dierencesin their customs, but without discrimination. Tey sawa condence in me and some started to ask questions

concerning tea. Pride lled my heart that night, and Icould just be with an unpretentious ability to respondto questions, prepare tea and thank the whole experi-ence.

In respect and special thanks to the one andonly Akbar, these days, I like to say a new mantra or alie o tea:

Be Great, Be Love.

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In tea preparation there is always a lot o discussion o orm versus unction. On the one hand, it shows greatrespect to prepare the tea in a way that allows its greatest virtue to shine orth. It took a tremendous concert onatural energies and billions o years to evolve this plant medicine, bestowed on us by Nature. And tea is one o

the most taxing crops, costing armers countless hours o toil. Ten, or most o us, there is the work o transporting thetea to where we livemostly done by hardworking tea merchants who love the Lea and want to share it. Finally, wealso work hard to gather the money needed to buy our tea. In honor o all this, we brew the tea in a way that it wantsto be brewed: the way that allows its essence to be gloried. And or that reason, most tea lovers usually incline towardsunction over time, choosing teaware and brewing methodologies that enhance tea over those that are perormancebased or merely look nice.

Despite the need or unction, we also cannot neglect orm either. Tere is an enhancement, indenable but

denitely real, when we enjoy tea in pleasant surroundings and when the movements o the brewer are graceul andbeautiul. It doesmake the tea better, though we may not be able to describe just how it does this. Some owers nearthe tea, a recent guest announced, completely changed his experience o the tea.

Te stage on which the tea is perormed is called the Cha Xi in Chinese. It is usually composed o a tea cloth, atea pillow or tea boat, some utensils and maybe a waste-water vessel (jen shui). Ten, we can decorate the space however

we want: with owers, a Buddha, stones, bamboo or wood. Tese help calm us and bring a sense o harmony to thesession. Tey enhance the story the tea is telling us the way that the stageits props and decorationscan enhance the

work o great actors. Still, ancy special eects wont make a silly movie great. Te plot and the acting are always moreimportant; and wed rather watch a great actor on an empty stage than a poor actor tell an uninteresting story on a ancystage with a lot o props. Similarly, a simple tea in a bowl with no stage is better than a gorgeous stage in which the teais orgotten. Sometimes this happens, just as Hollywood sometimes makes ancy movies with no substance. People also

get wrapped up in the perormance and beauty that surround tea and orget why they are thereto make great tea!Perhaps orm is a kind o unction when it is used properly? ry adding some summer touches to your tea thismonth: a nice tea cloth with some decorative colors that match some aspect o your tea, a scroll, some owers, a rockor woodanything that calms the mind and soothes the soul, enhancing the work that the tea is doing. You will ndthat a bit o orm can make your tea much more enjoyable, as long as you dont lose sight o the tea. We oten leave thevessel and cups/bowls alone and use other aspects o the Cha Xito express ourselves.

Arranging our space or tea is like a mandala, which is a piece o artwork meant to express this moments re-lationship to all o time and spaceto show the cosmic signicance o our gathering and the galaxies beyond all ourpersonal drama. Te Dao wont be rufed by our entire existence, and even ater our sun has long gone out and we arebut a memory in space, the stars will still wheel on and the Dao will embrace it all. Allow the smallness and ordinarinesso your tea session to resonate with the greatness o Being and you will have ound the unction in the orm!

Gong Fu Tea TipsMay 2013

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Rhythm, Lost in a Tea MeditationStory by Shane Marrs

Arhythm courses through the veins o this world.

A Great Heart beats and the earth itsel trem-ors on all stratums, rom gross to delicate. Hid-

den messages are whispered in spirals, eddies, ractals, andratios. Schools o birds and ocks o sh twist, arc andsway in mirrored synchronicity. Volcanoes erupt and ci-cadas awaken in chords o celebration. Nature winds andunwinds, soughs and sails, passes through time in orms owebs and waves and innite change. Beings o water, landand air tap into that rhythmic vein, hurdling and cascad-

ing down evolutionary channels.

Te youngchatong(tea helper), sitting in medi-tation, cant shake these lucid thoughts o rhythm. Temeditation has only just begun. Legs crossed, backstraight, chin tucked and eyes gently closed. Shadowygures shufe in the immediate oreground as oth-ers join the hour-long sit. Te space is quiet, yet erythoughts blaze across a mind ull o activity Breathein.

emperatures uctuate; waters ebb and ow; Moon waxesand wanes. remendous power is generating this Universalsymphony. Great orests and microscopic algae work tire-lessly and the earth breathes deeply. Birds migrate, bearshibernate, and the seasons take shape in response to cos-mic alignments. Everything twists and melds in a chewy

ow with lots o texture and innite space within which tocontract and expand. Natures rhythm is one o perpetualchange and abundance.

A slight shufe at the hips and stretch o theshoulder blades brings attention back to the presentmoment. She sits upright; knowing as much as shedlike twenty minutes to have passed by now, its morelike twelve. Being a student o Cha Dao, immersed ina lie o tea; its no wonder such thoughts o rhythm

bombard her meditation space. A lie o tea is a lie orhythm. Tere is always a ow to consider: the Flow oChange. In particular, when regulating the water ortea.Breathe out.

Te charcoal layout can inuence the time a cast-iron ket-tle takes to boil by tens o minutes. Not to mention the typeo charcoal used, how thoroughly it was lit, and in whatbrazier it burns. While two kettles are necessary, its cum-bersome to have both ready at the same time. Predicting

how ast the rst kettle will be consumed and consideringthe state o the charcoal roughly determines how much timethe second kettle requires to reach a boil. On a good day,one kettle drips dry whilst the other boils to a sh eye. Terate that water is used varies bowl by bowl and guests may

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arrive and dissipate like birds on a power line. O course,each tea itsel lends to variance in preparation based on theamount and method o brewing. Where is the ow? Whento put on the next kettle? What is the rhythm o change?

She grits her teeth like a threatened alley dogthrough the physical pain and mental calamity thatbuild in unison, but remains cross-legged, determinedto return to the sot center o her own rhythmic breath.Her eyes remain shut. Trough her nostrils, the dry airis moistened, taken in deeply, and exchanged in exhala-tion. For a brie moment, her mind shines with silencelike the ull moon rom behind a thin veil o clouds.Breathe in.

ea rhythm happens in the course o a day, over the periodo a week, throughout each month and within the year.Rhythm nested within rhythm where changing circum-stances can cause a shit rom one level to the next at anymoment. Is this chaos or rhythm married to change? Surely,i any pattern is to be recognized, it must be done with

great attention to detail, and only in the present moment.Flow is ound in awareness and skilled reaction to that pat-tern. Rhythm is realized in a regular and intuitive responseto that ow.

Calm, she remains poised, letting these thoughtspass just as they spontaneously arise. Not attached tohaving them, not attached to letting them go, and al-

ways resolved to return to the breath.

Breathe out.

What beautiul rhythm lies at the tea table. Mental musicslowly subsiding, the sound o silence ever increasing, oer-

ing bowls ull o tea, returning them empty to the heartmedicine or the peopleetching o water and exchang-ing o kettles, pouring rom spouts and delicate sounds,steam rising and wavering, warming o lips and easing otension, the nal steeping, cleaning, this tea gathering diesto be born again. Trough tea make riends.

Her mind wanders no more. For whatevertime remains, she sits in inner stillness. Eternity. Shehas realized the base rhythm:

Breath in.Breath out.

Its not how many times your mind wanders,but how many times you bring it back.

An old friend

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The summer has brought an incredible vibrancyto our land, and the birds, monkeys, bugs, ea-gles and other wildlie are all moving with the

urgency o heat and humidity. Te surrounding moun-tains are green and lush, lling the heart with a senseo natural abundance. We are indeed provided or. TeEarth is still very much alive and in love with Heaven.

Our community is very much about living inharmony with the Great Spirit and all lie on this planet.Tat is health, and anything that helps us achieve thatcommunion is medicine. ea is a return to the moun-tains. It comes rom there, and whether you dwell in thecity or the mountains, it is important to return to thatconnectionboth spiritually and physically by takingactual trips out into Nature. Light and lie will meet inour intentional community, providing a chance to worktogether as a tribe, learning rom tea and the land. Temountains o aiwan are a glorious place to nd yoursel,and in Miao Li spiritual work catalyzes on its own (call itDaoist Geomancy,eng shui, i you wish.)

Many people ask us what the dierences betweenour current center (ea Sage Hut) and the new center(Light Meets Lie) will be. Te main dierence is justin the size and the amount o people we can host. Tesedays the ea Sage Hut is always ull, hosting roughly oneto two hundred people a year. Te new center will beable to house twice that comortably, and it is denitelyour aim to expand a bit (though not too much). Also,

we currently need to have two buildings: a main one orguests, classes, meditation, etc. and another or long-term residents to live in since space is limited. Te newcenter, however, will allow us to all live in one location.Finally, there is the most obvious improvement, whichis that Light Meets Lie is located in the mountains, araway rom any noise that isnt plant or animal. Tis willallow us to deepen our tea practice, to arm our ownood and to have an educational tea garden that will havemany varietals rom around the world, aording gueststhe chance to process some tea to take home.

We still plan to keep our main building in MiaoLi city i there is enough money, as some guests arriveat night and need to be housed. Tis also allows us totake trips and return at night as well. Furthermore, thereis going to be no Wi-Fi or other connectivity at Light

Meets Lie, so guests that need some connectivity willthen have the opportunity to go stay in the town or aday and google to their hearts content.

We have made a commitment to start using thenew center as much as possible, as soon as possible; andregardless o when the money or building comes. Tismeans that we have rst o all started landscaping the

property already. We plan to use the time we have, whilewe raise this large amount o money, planting trees, clear-ing up some o the space, running in power and waterlines, etc. It also means that we will start camping at thenew center this summer. We hope to go there a weekenda month and start sleeping on the property, cooking byre and drinking tea in the early morningsusing the

water on the property, o course. We dont need to havea building to enjoy the community o trees and animalsthere, and to be uplited by the surrounding mountainsand views. Tis also starts the center, long beore anyground has been broken.

And that is our special announcement or this is-sue: the new center, Light Meets Lie, will ocially openthis month! Should any o you nd yoursel Eastwardbound, you have but to ask and we can try to arrange atent stay at the new center, should you nd ea Sage Huttoo urban or you (doubtul) or i you just want to be inNature and/or alone. Te unseen doors are open! Comecamp with us at Light Meets Lie this summer!

Should any o you wish to contribute or have

any ideas or ways to help us realize this vibrant dream,please contact us. You can donate at the Center page oour GH website or send a check to:

Global ea Hut West2441 Beverley Ave. #6

Santa Monica, CA 90405United States

Or contactus or other ways to support.

Light Meets Life

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People sometimes wonder why it is that a teacenter ocuses so much on spiritual matters.Some people view tea as a beverage, a hobby

or perhaps a cultural art and thereore better let tothe proane. Tey wonder why the tempest in such asmall cup. Why the uss? Why not just drink tea? Someare tea lovers, and yet still have diculty swallowing asense o the sacred with the inusions they brew. It islikely, however, that such people have diculty nd-ing the sacred in anything. Te answer as to where the

spirit, lie and Dao o tea issue rom is threeold: thepractical, the nature o the Lea and the virtue o thehighest arts. Each o these three aspects o this traditionand lie is complete on its own, addressing why tea issacred to us and why the brewing and imbibing o it isa ceremonial rite:

Te PracticalOn the most basic level we drink tea in a spir-

itual way because we are spiritual people. It seems ob-vious, but still needs to be stated that people who areinterested in spiritual matters, and in cultivating them-selves towards greater spiritual heights, will both viewtea as an aspect o a spiritual lie and a means o cultiva-tion. All spirituality, in whatever method or tradition,is about cultivating wisdom and kindness. And whenone has chosen a lie o wisdom and compassion, eve-rything is a spiritual tool, and every daily act a chanceto learn and grow, transorm and transcend.

Most people who are on a spiritual journey

nd little reward in materialism or sensual pleasure.Tis isnt a rejection o the world, but rather an insightinto its true nature as transitory and thereore beyondgrasping. Some conuse this or an aversion towards orrejection o beauty and pleasure. Quite the contrary,the enlightened revel in beauty and pleasure, they justavoid concluding such experiences in craving or moreor a desire to possess. Tis desire to possess is delusorybecause there is no such thing as property or owner-ship in anything other than a social, legal sense. We allcome and go rom this world naked, and without any

o this, including this sel. Tere is little lasting pleas-ure in the world, and sensuality is but the shadow otrue joy, which is the soul resting in its true nature andheart. Also, sensual pleasure is so oten a means o es-cape; rather than addressing and curing our malady, it

but allays the symptoms, providing temporary comort.It is like weeding without taking out the roots.

As a result, most spiritual people are already ap-proaching tea rom a sense o depth and understanding.Tey are seeking medicine, rather than sensual pleasure.Te joys o preparing tea are welcomed, but rarely pri-mary in their relationship to tea, which is more aboutsel-cultivation, connection with Nature and sharing aheart space with others in communion.

Simply put: let the worldly tea drinker drink

tea as a beverage or hobby. Tere is nothing wrong withthat; and vice versa, those o us on a path nd in tea ariend, ally and teacher throughout our journey. Spir-itual people drink tea spiritually, and o course they do!

Te Nature of the LeafMost o the plants in this world evolve to ll a

particular niche in a local environment, and that pro-cess has little to do with human beings. Other plantshave a long and very inuential relationship with us,changing as we interact with them. And we believethat some plants evolve as teachersmessages rom theplant kingdom that are here to show us the light. Andtea is one o the greatest o these entheogens.

Tere is no plant with a greater relationshipto the history and consciousness o humankind. Ithas been the currency o empires, helping to establishand protect China through trade with the Northernersand then the British empires global trade as well. Forthousands o years people have imbibed tea as medi-

cine and spiritual communion, with Nature and eachother. Tere are villages in Japan where ather and sonspent every waking moment devoted to the creation oone kind o teaware or some twenty generations, likebamboo whisks or example. And that is just one kindo teaware amongst many. ea armers, healers, teawaremakers, tea sages, merchants and dealers have devotedso much heart to this plant that it has become inter-twined with our karma indelibly.

Tey say that the great emperor, the DivineFarmer (Shen Nong), was meditating one day when a

tea lea ell into his boiling water. Drinking the elixir, heexclaimed, Tis is the emperor o all medicinal herbs!Shen Nongis said to have given the people civilization,arming, and taught them herbal medicine as well assimple hygiene. He is supposed to have ruled or a

Tea and Spirituality

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thousands years, though what he most likely representsis all the wisdom o the tribal shamans and chietainso pre-civilized China, who were the source o plant/animal domestication and other social advancement.Te tea lea alling into the legendary emperors pot isdemonstrating its desire to be human, to connect to

the consciousness o people. It is the king o all herbsbecause other plant medicines are only useul to treatone or a ew illnesses, and are oten poisonous i onedoesnt have those symptoms, whereas tea can be im-bibed every day and provides alignment and harmony

with Nature. Tis means that teas medicinal qualitiesare in the way it aligns body, mind and spirit with Na-ture. And when we are aligned with our environment,

we also automatically align with each otherpeace-ully and in an open heart space.

Plants are aware, and recognize their connec-

tion to the other kingdoms ar more intimately andwith greater interconnectedness than we do: openingand receiving the mineral kingdom, the light and pow-er o the sun, moon and stars and then giving on theother end, allowing animals and humans to consume

their energy, oten propagating themselves through thatprocess. Te energy o the universe ows and movesthrough them in ways that we can only understandthrough consuming and communing with them. Tey arethe source o our solar energy, or example, which ani-mates all that we do: me in the writing and you in the

reading. It only makes sense that certain plants wouldevolve in conjunction with animals, and it happens allthe time. Animals then evolve in response to plants as

well. In light o that, you could say that we have thereceptors to receive teaa connection with this plantbody, mind and soul. Tat may have come rom yearso drinking it, which might explain why some peoplehave more receptors than others. But any o you whoknow Wu De, know that he is a hopeless romantic, soI like to believe that we had those receptors beore weever drank any tea and were just waiting to meet, like

estranged lovers waiting or that rst, ated star-cross-ing.

ea and humankind have become intertwinedcompletely, which means we share the same ate, ingood and ill. Tis plant has embraced us as only Nature

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can. And so much in the tea world has been corruptedand turned to industry and pollution, like all aspectso what humankind has done to the Earth, our Moth-er. As a result, even today, tea spans the entire humanspectrum: rom the lowest o greed and environmentaldestruction to the highest o spiritual states, and every-thing in between.

ea is medicine, but not in the Western senseo the word, more in a Native American sense: anythingthat puts us in alignment with the Great Spirit and alllie on this planet. Health o body, mind and spirit bothcreate such harmony and result rom it. Tis meansthat teaisspirituality. Te proane, economic trade otea has only been around or one to two thousand years,and only predominantly or ve hundred. Prior to that,all tea was drunk medicinally, which is to say spiritually.Tere are three-thousand-ve-hundred-year-old cavepaintings in Yunnan. Some o them portray tea pick-

ing and processing, but the vast majority are o tribesbringing oerings o ruits, owers and incense to praybeore the sacred tea trees. For thousands and thousandso years tea was viewed as a sacred medicinal plant. As aresult, its relationship with all the spiritual traditions othe Far East was assured, since the shamans would passon such medicine to those that ollowed: both Bud-dhist and Daoist traditions have deep and meaningulrelationships with the Lea, to the point that when the

Japanese came to China to learn Zen Buddhism, theyreturned with tea plants, tea and teaware and told theircountrymen that the masters in China had said that inorder to promulgate Zen in Japan it would be necessaryor tea to take root their as well, or Zen and ea areone avor!. Tey said this because they recognized thespiritual value o tea. Daoist mendicants and Zen Bud-dhists both had their own origin legends or tea, high-lighting various qualities they value in tea. Zen monksand nuns were likely the rst people to domesticate tea.

ea is a very sensitive plant, and the act thatits brewed with water makes it doubly sensitive. Water

also has been proven time and again to be greatly inu-enced by words, thoughts, music and energy, like thewater crystal studies o Dr. Eomoto or example. Hephotographs water crystals and then exposes the wa-ter to positive and negative inuences beore re-photo-graphing the crystals. He has ound that the positivelyinuenced crystalsexposed to positive, complimenta-ry words or power words like love, as well as good mu-sicare always symmetrical and beautiul, whereas thenegatively inuenced onesexposed to hatred, anger,etc.are all asymmetrical, distorted and ugly. Since tea

and water are both so sensitive to the mind o the onebrewing, even beginners quickly realize the inuencetheir mind is having on the tea: a nervous mind makesnervous tea and a quiet mind also quiets others. Under-standing this experientially, one can quickly realize why

tea has sat in ceremony between master and studentor so many thousands o years. Ater all, what couldbe more poignant, metaphorically and literally, than tohave the student drink in the mind o the master? Andthis ceremonial exchange goes the other way too: thereis a long-standing Chinese tradition o preparing teaor masters, elders or even the husband in a Chinese

wedding ceremony, and the acceptance o the tea is anacceptance o the student or wie, or they have putthemselves into their tea. Tis ability to transmit is oneo the most important and wonderul qualities o teapreparation, and one that has endeared it to spiritualaspirants or so long.

Te act is that tea is a Daoalways has been,always will be. Te lineage o tea sages, using tea tocultivate themselves and then share what they have cul-tivated with others dates back beore the pyramids. Tis

incredibly vast heritage o devotion, prayer, study andmeditation surrounding tea answers why it is a spiritualpractice better than any article could. Te why isnt asimportant as the act that it works, and has or millen-nia!

Te Virtue and Purpose of ArtIt is not sufcient merely to be a great master in painting

and very wise, but I think it is necessary or the painterto be very moral in his mode o lie, or even, i such werepossible, a saint, so that the Holy Spirit may inspire hisintellect.

Michelangelo

In James Joyces portrait o himsel as a youngartist he mentions that the true, high arts cause a personto experience great stillness, meditation and contempla-tion while lower arts catalyze movement in us. Whenpeople enter the church and look up at Michelangelos

work they are awestruck, silent and agape. When welook at an advertisement or more entertaining moviesthat depict sex and/or violence our animal nature isstimulated, and our desires start churning. Tough itis true that art has expanded to limitless realms o un-derstanding and imagination, as our creativity has beensocially and psychologically liberated, the true purposeo art has always and ever will be to channel the sa-cred into orm and then share that orm with others inthe hope that it help encourage their own return to thetranscendent.

Tere is a whole genre o art meant to expose,hash out or even dele boundaries: art that attacksclosed-mindedness or perhaps uncovers aspects o cul-ture that need addressing. Such art is a testament o thetimes and can indeed be useully cathartic, or even lead

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to positive changes. And there is no artist that wouldwish or a return to the days when art was constricted,orced to create religious images or beholden to certainashionable criteria. However, the true purpose o arthas always been to convey the sacreddating back tenso thousands o years!

I you believe that metaphysical truth and spir-itual uplitment are aspects o great art then it onlystands to reason that the artist who wishes to createsuch art must spend as much or more time attuningtheir spiritual sensitivity as she does honing her skills

with brush and paint, clay or stone. I you want tocreate art that evokes the sacred then you must have aconnection to sacred inner space, and the greater thatconnection is, the more powerul your art will be andthe more moved those who approach it will be.

And what about the eects the artistic processhas on the artist hersel? Tere is a tradition in Zen ousing the arts themselves as a means o cultivation; ori the artist is meditating and achieving mystical statesbeore and during the creative process, then she also

will be as transormed as those who perceive her artor more likely much more or standing within the lightitsel.

You reach the point in the mastery o any artwhere it is necessary to begin working on the sel inorder to achieve greater results, because the true artist

realizes that the way she treats people, what she eats,how she sleeps and walks all aect her art tremendously.Emerson said that while the lesser artists create to en-hance sel and are thereore prone to seek inspiration in

wine or drugs, the true artists eace themselves in purespirit and become its instrument; and moved by theHoly Spirit, they then create the masterpieces that stillthe soul even thousands o years later.

In other words, i you want your tea to be atransormative experience or you and those who joinyou then you must cultivate yoursel spiritually. I yourmind is wandering, and you havent mastery over yourthoughts, you will not create a sense o the sacred inthe tea you serve others. Te more peaceul you are, themore peaceul will be the tea you pour, which will bring

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you more peace and allow you to share it, and so on ina deepening spiral

Tere is a story o a Daoist who was quite oldand his career had kept him rom progressing very arspiritually, but now that he was retired he had an ear-nest desire to grow. He came across a painting in themarket, which was an antique but still cheap because

the ink and colors were aded; it hadnt been well caredor. For the rst time, the old man saw a glimpse othe Dao. He knew that whoever painted it was surelyilluminated. He bought it and took it home. He thenenshrined it and spent hours every day meditating inront o it. Te bridge, stream and mountain trail ledpast a grove o trees to a distant temple. One day, atersome months o such meditations, he ound his eetupon that bridge. He could eel the wood and hear the

water owing beneath him. He looked back and sawhimsel meditating in the distance. He smiled, turned

and rounded the corner and was never heard romagain.

When you brew tea with mastery this doesntmean you have learned all there is to know about tea;all the inormation about tea history or lore wont makea tea that transorms people or yoursel. Quite the op-posite. Such know-it-alls are usually egotistical andspend their tea sessions discussing and debating, writ-ing opinions in notebooksopinions about the tea orsomething else altogether. And mastering how to holda teapot, how to pour, the proper temperature, etc. also

wont make tea that heals you or others. o do that, youwill have to liberate yoursel.

rue mastery isnt about control. It is aboutnding that place in you that connects to the Dao and

allowing it to act through you, so that it is preparingthe tea. When Stillness itsel prepares tea, o coursethose who drink it will be inclined to become still!

It is the noise o the world and our condition-ing in it that has separated us rom our goodness. I

we do not do wrong, we do the right thing. Withoutevil in our heart, goodness shines through; and i were

not selsh, selessness is abundant. All o the saints oall the traditions have veried the inherent goodness oman, and that the return to our inner child, our truenature, is a sotening and returning to the Dao. Follow-ing tea is nding the Dao in our heart and allowing itto run things, or it is connected to the universal intel-ligence that has organized the cosmos in perect align-ment and dance.

I tea is to be an art that uplits those who prac-tice it, and those who participate in itthe guests/ob-serversit is thereore important or the artist to be all

that she hopes to convey. Tis is a lie o tea. And insuch a lie, the Chajin realizes that in all that she does,rom her awakening mind to the last beore sleep, inevery step, in every breathe, in the way she eats andtreats people, in her meditation and all that is betweenmeditation sessionsshe is brewing tea!

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Its oten paraphrased rom Michelangelo that iyou wish to make a sculpture o a horse out o ablock o stone, its really very simple: all you need

to do is remove everything that is not the horse.Its a lovely thought in reerence to our own

strivings or sel-improvement. We seek to be betterpeople and naturally we plan all sorts o ways in whichto achieve this only to then get stuck in complex listso Tings o Do. Its a giddy joy to think that we neednot add anything at all to ourselves. In act, quite the

opposite, we simply need to remove all that is not nec-essary to let that higher sel stand unencumbered.

Yes, I wrote the word simple twice already. Idid so not without irony. Getting rid o that which isunnecessary is much more dicult than the adding onprocess, just as it is much easier to create habits thanundo them. Its how were wired: once a patterned be-havior/thought is neurochemically used in our brainsit takes much more active eort to break this connec-tion than it did to make it. Also, humans are prettycrappy at imagining things they have not yet experi-

enced and at imagining uture consequences o totallynew behavior.

Yet what a great time o the year to give all this asporting go: Spring! It eels so right, so organic to cleanup and clean out at this time. Suddenly, everythinglooks truly resplendent when cleaner, leaner. Suddenly,inspiration oods the brain to winnow through boxesand drawers, to wipe neglected window sills, vacuumthe inside o winter-encrusted cars and get rid o that

which is unnecessary.

Tere are three main, sometimes cluttered areaso ones lie in which Spring Cleaning can be neededyear-round: the world o Tings, the world o Belies& Knowledge and the world o Humans. Allow me toreect here on my own attachments to these worlds andmuse about ways to disentangle

Firstly, though, I should mention that I dontquite agree with the notion that there is a time to ex-pand and then comes a time to contract. Its not quiteso simple. Its not like acquisition o all kinds suddenly

comes to an end ater some specic stage o develop-ment, and ater that only reduction. Further, Id cau-tion against looking upon any kind o accumulationas somehow negative, guilt-worthy or evil. For exam-ple, we have minds and need to use them, to developthem humanely. Tere is sometimes an anti-intellectualtrend in the spiritual community that seems knee-jerksuspicious o all intellectual or philosophical pursuit.Doubtlessly, urban-dwelling, modern humans canbenet massively rom less brain activity and less over-analyzing (even bands rom Hall & Oates to the Sup-

port Lesbians wrote songs called No Brain No Pain,so theres gotta be something to the idea!). However,ocused development o knowledge, improvement oskills through understanding and proper use o thegreatest tool we will ever be handed is a show o duty,love and respect to our physical and mental selves thatcan be cherished, nourished and not dropped atersome arbitrary point.

And yet, now onto the joys o reducing, be-coming smaller the delicate lessness o things

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Te World of TingsIve had a collectors mentality or as long as I

can remember. And hey, I wasnt a collector o junk,no way! I collected really cool items! Heavily into allthings antique in my teens, I collected old objects withsigns o splendid decay: old books (no matter their con-tent, as long as their bindings were crinkled brown anddusty), worn, old photographs (posed groups photosrom 1880s-1930s were my avorites); later I had an

enviable mini collection o American religious kitschitems (the 3D Last Supper wall ornament and Jesuscandle were among my avorites); I liked 1970s V-show-themed board games (envious were the eyes thatbeheld my Bionic Woman Game) and memorabilia(you can imagine my joy at discovering, in a post-Sovietmarket, a Farrah Fawcett shampoo bottle); vinyl-wise I

was crazy about everything rom Ghostly Sound Eectsto Obscure Ukrainian Marches, with protracted stopson the way or disco, electronica and Glenn Gould; andbooks, well, I collected everything I could about the

Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris, and anything at all todo with the history o cinema or photography and theoccult. I was also the de acto historian o my extendedamily and collected my grandparents memorabilia

alongside my sel-generated ones too (photos by thethousands, videos in the hundreds o hours)

By the time I moved away rom Canada, I hadtwo truck-loads worth o Very Interesting Stu tostore: some 3000 records/CDs, 2000 books and end-less boxes o trinketsrom a 1950s wooden schooldesk to clippings rom my rst haircut. It has taken memany years to reduce this amount by 90% (and endlesshours on Ebay and Amazon. At least others have appre-

ciated my eccentricities to the tune o some $10,000.One rare book alone I sold or $1100, and these salesallowed me to live the lie o a lowly, traveling journalistor a ew years).

I realized at some point that things are part omy karma in this lie, specically the proper dispensingo them (not just tossing them out but nding a good,new home or them). I have learned a deep respect orthe material world all the while gradually disentanglingmysel rom the automatic desire to collect and possess.

Ive also learned that cleaning out is never just

a case o good sorting and throwing out skills; it is moreabout not bringing in extra items into your lie in therst place. Its very easy to buy some interesting item,and there is always justication or doing so, but I re-mind mysel now when contemplating any purchase:

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this thing represents uture time, eort and expenseitmight break and need repair, or it will have to be movedrom one place to another, cleaned, attended to, putaway, disposed o or carted away to someone else orbrought to some landll. Is this item worth the utureexpenditure o time and eort? Sometimes yes, and Itake it with me (hopeully with some awareness), but

oten it denitely is not worth the eort and it stayswhere it is.

Tis is still an ongoing process or me, but Ivemade progress, and wow, does wide-open space in myapartment eel great!

Te World of Beliefs & KnowledgeWe are a curious sort, us humans. Literally. We

need to wonder in awe, to ask why and seek explana-tions. A beautiul quality. Yet the acquisition o knowl-edge gets tied to the entrenching o belie systems andpatterned ways o responding to the external world. Inour pursuit o new knowledge we oten abandon ourinitial curiosity and become satised with an illusiono knowing and the comort o repeating over and overagain habitual behaviors and ways o responding.

Separating the wheat rom the cha is moredicult here than in the world o things. Our beliesand how they guide our lives are less obvious to us;our pursuit o knowledge seems to be unquestionably a

positive thing. Giving these things up is tricky. Know-ing when to stop reading every book about a certainsubject, to stop turning the pages and start living is amini-art-orm in and o itsel. Seeing how we close our-selves to whats around us behind a veil o our knowl-edge-backed belies is the beginning o a high level onon-attachment.

I dont recall how I started this, but as a youngkid I somehow got the notion o trying to believe

without believing in things. I I elt my brain mak-ing a judgment, Id experiment with not believing it at

the same time as I believed it. Somehow I got the idea(probably rom one o those dusty old books) to thinkthe opposite o any thought which came into my headand see i I could nd any truth in that as well. I Iheard mysel think, Oh thats good, or bad, Id thinkthe opposite just or un and see i that was also true tosome extent. Te damnable thing was that there wasalwaystruth to be ound in the exact opposite o mystated belie, no matter how rmly I reallythought it tobe true.

I recall, or example, loathing to go to big

parties or events where there were lots o other kidsaround, like childrens Christmas parties organized bymy moms workplace where we all had to straddle San-tas knees and be cute. I would repeat to mysel, I dont

want to go! Itll be boring and Ill hate it! I tried out

the opposite: I do want to go. Itll be interesting and Iwill enjoy it. At rst I grumbled but then rememberedprevious times when I was dreading something and itturned out to be great; there was nothing inherentlydread-worthy about this event, and my anxiety over it

was weakened. Byron Katie would have been proud ome.

I practiced this kind o maybe its true, maybeits not thinking or many years and then orgotabout it as I plunged into lie rom University on, andcollected many rigid thinking patterns which I became,unbeknownst to mysel, attached to. Only in recentyears have those early lessons returned to play a sooth-ing role. rying to accommodate the opposite o what-ever thought the brain generates is one great practice.

Anything which breaks patterns and shits perspec-tives can be helpul, or example, the technique o do-ing things which one is not used to doing, even trivial

things, is amazingly helpul at retaining exibility omind and spirit (or some cool suggestions, check out

www.theundolist.com).

Te World of HumansFor me, by ar the hardest o all to trim out o

lie are extra persons. Even that line sounds incrediblyharsh to me. Maybe its my years o psychology and so-cial work training. Maybe its because at the age o 13 I

thought, I I were to die now, well, I wouldnt want to,but it wouldnt be that bad as my lie hasnt been wast-edIve helped some people. Yup, a bleeding heart

with a tendency o placing other peoples (perceived/imagined) needs well above my own. A amiliar story,really.

With the unexamined motto o help others atall costs as ones raison detre, one cannot then ever sayno to others. Tis has resulted in hundreds o hours otelephone conversations where, even ater an hour osteady listening, oering advice and saying, hmmm,

oh-ho, Ive been unable to say, Ok, well, gotta gonow, instead. Teyneededto talk, ater all. Always adangerous territory to enter: assuming what other peo-ple need. It can be kind and sweet and other-ocusedto be attuned to other peoples needs. But it can also bethe height o arrogance (I know what they need),arise rom sel-importance (and I know how to giveit) and lead down murky pathways (people oten hopeyou have what they think they need but can turn awayor even turn nasty when they realize you dont).

Best to stay away rom others? Certainly not.

Best to never be o support and assistance? Certainlynot. We all need and benet rom that. Wu De remindsus that we are here to serve. Indeed. Yet not blindlyand higgledy-piggeldy. o serve wholly also necessarilyimplies that ones time must not be wasted on energy-

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draining or time-swallowing activities, including socialones. Whats wrong with meeting riends, chillaxing,bonding? Nothing necessarily, but i we were to take ahard look at what we do, or how long and with whomin our lives, wed see that quite a bit o that socializing isnot only extraneous or us and them but also gets in the

way o the progress we keep saying we wish to make.A decision to do one thing is in itsel an active

decision not to do another. By doingthis, we are active-

ly choosing not to do that so later we cannot ret thatwe have no time to do that. Oten we continue meet-ing people long ater our karmas have come togetherand walked their paths together out o habit, a sense oduty, guilt, or out o an avoidance o doing somethingmore challenging with our time.

Once we become more certain o our particularlie direction, with a deeper sense o what we need todo, and stripped o sel-illusions, many aspects o ourormer selves naturally and easily all away: things, rigidbelie structures, and people. We no longer play with

the same people we did at ve or teen years old, right?Tat we dont says nothing bad about them. Just thatour time to walk down a common path together hasended and that we have both moved on, enlightenedand perhaps wiser by our having spent important time

together. It can be incredibly hard to part ways whenone person does not recognize the need to do so, but inthe end it can be much more costly to continue a rela-tionship which has outrun its course and which leavesno ree room or others to move in or the next dance.

Oo! As usual, I have been long-winded and yetonly said one-th o what I could about this massivesubject. I shall likely tackle Giving Up another time, as

I mysel continue to learn more the value o what Laozialready wrote long ago in the Dao De Jing, verse 48(another paraphrasing): the worldly person devoted tolearning seeks to gain something every day; the persondevoted to the Dao seeks each day to give somethingup.

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Lately I read Antoine de Saint-ExuprysLe Petit Prince. For many months, my deargirlriend recommended it, but I didnt

read it. Something kept me rom it. Maybe I just wasntready. Maybe I was too grown up or it. Te monthspassed and passed until nally, I grabbed it rom theshel, opened to the rst page and started. I elt happy;the book had lots o pictures, big letters and it was thin.I read it really quicklyorty minutes and done. Aterthat I elt even better. It was the perect time to read it,as I am on a path o sel-discovery through tea. I guess

that i I had read it a ew years or even a year ago, itmight not have had any eect on me. Tere was a loto truth in it which resonated with me, especially aboutour important grown-up lie and how we are alwaysbusyhow we have to do all the time. We dont haveany time to just be...

O the several interwoven stories within thebook, the one that struck me the most was the taleabout the Little Prince and the ox. Tey met one dayand Little Prince told the ox: Come and play withme. I am very unhappy. Te ox replied: I cannot play

with you. I am not tame. Ater which Little Princeasked: What does the word tame mean? It is a longorgotten thing replied the ox. It means making con-nections. At last, the ox said: Please tame me, Lit-tle prince. Ten we can play and be together. We willlove each other and it will give my lie meaning. Atrst I didnt pay much attention to the story, but later Istarted thinking about how it was such a beautiul wayto explain the word tame.

Id previously thought that tame means to com-

pel something or somebody, and always thought o it as

a bit o a bad thing. Like a trainer who tames an animal;this always seemed to me a bit harsh or violent. Maybethe animal doesnt want to be tamed and wants to be

wild, so why tame her/him? Do we always have to in-terere? But now I think I have seen it wrong all along.O course there can be abuse between master and pet,but sometimes there is something else behind their re-lationship. It is connections that they are making. Teyare doing something extremely beautiul: trusting eachother! Te trainer gives the animal a bit o her soul andtakes some back in exchange. Tey are then soulmates

orever. ame can be something beautiul, though wemay not notice it...

Te point o this story may be that I eel thattea has tamed me. I I start to look at my present lie andhow I am living it, I see that tea is everywheremostlyin my heart. I am living more peaceully than ever. Iam healthier; my thinking has improved and some omy ears are vanishing. ea gives me the strength and

wisdom to carry on. We are soulmates, I need her tocontinue my path. Something beautiul has happened:I opened my soul and tea came and tamed me. Now

she is part o me and I hope I am hers. And I believemost o you have experienced the same. So to all o youtamed riends, lots o hugs and be well...

Tame Tea LoverArticle by Siim Loog

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Recently, Wu De painted two house rules onthe wall above the kitchen table. Te paint-ing reads:

HOUSE RULES (non-negotiable):

1. Hug everyone in this house everyday.2. Be in Love.

Your Heart

I went to art school, so unusual rules are notnew to me... but these are some pretty awesome rules!In this issue, Im going to talk about the rst rule. Nextmonth, Ill try to talk about the second rule

What Im about to say may shock some o you,but Im going to say it anyway: I used to hate hugs. No.Not hate. Loathe. I abhorred hugging. Yes, thats morelike it. Abhorred.

With a ew rare exceptions, hugging generatedin me not so much a discomort as a deep distress cou-pled with a eeling o wanting to either run out o the

room or crawl out o my own skin. It pressed play ona bizarre mental tape that usually went something likethis:

Oh, no. Tis person wants to hug me. Ugh, ugh, ughhh.Maybe I can get out o it... No! Ack, I cant! Teyre goingin or the kill! What i they just took out the trash andtheir clothes are all germ-y or they just touched money andtheir hands are all germ-y and they get germs all over me?What i I bump into their nose or poke their eye with mynose or elbow them somehow? (And, i hugging a male,What i I accidentally bump into their junk and they eeluncomortable or they think I did it on purpose???) What ithe other person doesnt like the way I smell or I breathe onthem and my breath is bad? Ugh, now were hugging and IHAAAAE it! Ick, I can eel their heartbeat! I can eel myheartbeat and its beating all weird and hard! Eww ewwewwww! Deep breath. NO! WAI! Teyll eel me breath-ing. Gross. Ill hold my breath until ater its over start-ing... now! Are they going to be one o those long huggers?Yestheyarenooooo... Makeitstoppleeeeeease... Umm, umm,

panic? Yes, panic! Now Im in a panic and that makes mynipples hard and o course Im wearing the bra that makesmy nipples look really pointy today and theyre going tosee my nipples and think Im aroused rom hugging themwhen, in act, its because I am terried o hugs! I really,

really, really hope this is over soon. No, orget hope. Tis isa hopeless situation, and I think Im going blue in the ace

rom not breathing. Im ending this! Hug ofcially OVER!

Teres no way I can know or sure, but Impretty sure that my distaste or hugs was palpable. Itcertainly showed in my technique, which Ill outline oryou in case you aspire to being the worlds worst hug-ger:

1. ry to get out o it by playing dumb/unavailable.What? Its hug time? Oh, I hadnt noticed that every-one else in the room was hugging! Oh, gee-gosh-darn-it, I have something in my hand/something I need togo do that makes me magically unable to give/receivehugs right now. Maybe next time! Byeee!

2. I you cant get out o it, try to make it as quick aspossible.

a) Making it extra casual helps get it over withquickly. Oh, alright, chum! A hug it is. Quick little pat

on the back and then Im gonna run away, cool?b) Making it extra awkward also compels the

other person to end the hug sooner. I ound that hug-ging in a weird position does this well. Aim your aceor their armpit or something equally strange. Dont

just leave your butt sticking way outmake sure theonly points o contact are arms, collar bones and above.For many women, this means leaning in an extremelycontorted way. All the better. In most cases, the otherhugger will quit long beore you do.

3. I they arent getting the hint that speed is the key,try an awkward, overly jovial laugh ollowed by a gentleshove o.

4. Above all else, do not look the other hugger in theeye at any point beore or ater the hug. Tey will seeyour panic and that is unacceptable. ake any and allnecessary steps to avoid eye contact. Laughing extrane-ously gives you a good reason to look at the oor/the

wall/nowhere in particular/not at the other hugger.

5. (Optional) I there are multiple people in the roomand youve just gotten through the rst hug, back awayslowly (or quickly). I necessary, make an excuse aboutsome urgent thing that you need to do right away.

First House Rule

Article by Lindsey Goodwin

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Tis oolproo method to messing up a hugworks on everyone. I mean everyone. A while back, Ieven tried it on Amma (the so-called Hugging Saint).Lemme tell you, it worked!

For those o you who have met me recently,this inormation may (or may not) come as a surprise. Ilove hugs now. So how does one get rom having an egothat reacts so negatively to hug time to being cool withhugs and living in a house where hugging is one o the

ONLY two rules in the house? Heres how I did it:

eaea is the most beautiul and gentle gateway

to presence and acceptance that I have ever elt. Whenyoure so twisted up inside that you cant even stand theeel o your own heartbeat (much less someone elses),trying to do a ten-day meditation course is probablynotthe best medicine or you. You need something tobridge doing and being. ea was, or me, the remedy.

It helped (and helps) me to be comortable in my ownskin and, through that, to be comortable in other peo-ples arms.

Furthermore, tea helps me eel comortable being pre-sent with and accepting o other people. You can onlysit down in silence and share a deep experience with asmall group o people so many times without lettingthem into your heart. Sharing tea with ellow studentsand new visitors alike is a deep healing o the heart thatopens me (and, likely, you) to sharing genuine bondsthat transcend the mundane and the material, bondsthat recognize the divinity in each and every person

present. From that vantage point, where the holy per-meates all o us, hugging is easy. Its no longer just anego bristling up against another ego or a body clumsily

wrapping itsel around another body. Its godliness con-necting to more godliness. And whats not to love aboutthat?

MeditationDid that mental tape loop I played or you ear-

lier eel at all amiliar? Maybe it isnt hugs or you, but

theres probably something that does or has pressed playon a similar recording or you. Meditation is incrediblemedicine or this. Trough the simple act o sitting stilland ocusing on your breath or physical sensations oranythingother than your mental garbage (or even by

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ocusing on your mental garbage asmental garbage), youcan begin to turn down these recordings or to erase themcompletely.

Meditation can also help you connect more toyour body, learning to recognize where you are holdingmuscle memories, anxiety, tension and other energiesthat prevent you rom being who you really are under-

neath all the trash youve been building up or the bulko your lie (or longer).

When you acknowledge these sensations as meresensations, these energies as mutable and these habits asnothing more than habits, you can initiate a prooundtransormation. Tis can mean (amongst many otherthings) going rom a person who goes into a tizzy everytime the possibility o hugs arises to someone who loveshugs. Im not a betting woman, but whatever your equiv-alent o hugging is, Id hazard a guess that mediation canx it, alleviate it or help you transcend it.

Living in an Intentional CommunityLiving in an intentional community is wonder-

ul. I mean, its really hard. Which is to say that its re-warding. By which I really mean dicult, but also in-credible. Do you know what I mean? Because I dontknow what Im talking about. Except or this: Living inan intentional community promotes intentional, con-scious living, thought and action. It takes whatever issues

you might have simmering and cranks up the heat onthem until theyve boiled away.

In my case, part o this has been getting overmy charming little hug problem. It all started with WuDe recognizing that I wasnt comortable hugging prettymuch anyone when I rst moved here. (ea and medi-tation had been helping prior to me moving here, butI still had a lot o work to do!) So what did he do? Hestarted telling everyone to hug me: Resident students.

Visitors. Anyone. Hey, welcome! Tis is Joyce, this isFresco, this is Fiona, this is Lindsey... Hug Lindsey. A lot.Every day. At the time, I was all, Gee, thanks, Wu De.I really need more panic in my lie. Dont we all? But onsome level, I still knew that I DID need the panic until IDIDN need the panic. What I mean to say is that youcan overcome these mental habits by orcing yoursel toace them head on, over and over, until you realize howcompletely unnecessary they are. For me, hugging lots opeople countless times was a training drill. It was practic-ing the same maneuvers over and over in preparation or

an anti-battle/hug-war. And that hug-war arrived aroundthe same time as the rule. It came in the orm o Greg

Wendt.

Te Patented Greg Wendt Hugging MethodI had been warned about Gregs mind-blowing

hugs or months beore he arrived, so I had plenty otime to prepare. Gregs hugs are the stu o legend, so

when Wu De announced an impending visit rom Greg,

I knew what was up. I didnt have to wait or Wu De to

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say Im gonna sic Greg on you to know that his visitwould require me to transcend my hug issue.

Fortunately, we tend to have all the right guestsat just the right times to help us learn all the lessons weneed to learn just when we need to learn them. So in ad-dition to hugging the usual suspects (Shane, Kaiya, Joyceand Wu De), I also got to practice hugging guests includ-

ing Skylar (one o my avorite tea sisters), ien Wu (atrue tea goddess) and Merlin (the love o my lie) beoreGreg arrived.

And you know what? Practice does make (roomor) perect(ion). By the time Greg got here, I welcomedhis hugs, as well as the hugs o everyone else. I was evenlucky enough to receive some hugging instruction romGreg on his patented hugging method, which Ill do mybest to paraphrase here:

1. Hug heart to heart.

2. Hug harder, sotly.3. Hug more yummily. (Optional: ry to out-yum theother person.)

During his visit, Greg even shared some ad-vanced tips with us, like always hugging heart to heart.

And i hugging had a ranking system, all our hugs wouldhave jumped like 500 points because o his visit. (Seri-ously, i you want to become a better hugger, go nd thisguy in LA and get a hug lesson rom him. Amazing!)

ForgivenessSometimes, people mess up. Tat means me.

Tat means you. Tat means all o us. Sometimes, we get

upset at each other and our egos and bad emotional hab-its get all activated and the idea o hugging seems terribleall over again. Sometimes, my ego takes over and I donthug everyone everyday. It usually uses a postponement(Its late in the day and I havent hugged anyone yet, soIll just skip today and try again tomorrow.), a projec-tion (Wu De is busy and probably doesnt want a hug

right now.), a rejection (Kaiya is all arty right now. Illhug him ater this round o gas passes.) or some otherinane excuse (Oh, that says House Rules? I thought itsaid House Ruies! Ah, tomorrow, then!) to get aroundrule number one. Sometimes, we all get into a little rutas a group and skip hugs or a couple days, and I start toblame my ormer hugging problem on some level. Butto even begin to try to hug everyone everyday requires alot o orgiveness o others and maybe even more orgive-ness o mysel. Was I terrible at hugging or a long time?

Absolutely. Does that mean I am now, or that I cant hug

everyone everyday? Nope.

I might never hug everyone every day or a longstretch. But thats what new days are or. Start again. Letgo o yesterday. No problems? Hug everybody! Got aproblem with someone? Hug it out! Dont skip anyone.Dont wait until tomorrow. Tems the rules, and theyrenon-negotiable!

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En-lighten Up

When you begin down an Eastern path, and Cha Dao mostly heads East, you quickly realize the important rolelanguage can play in our thinking, and consequently our insights. For the most part, we come to love the ancientspiritual words in languages like Sanskrit and Chinesefor their subtlety and breadth. Tere is one English word

weve come to like better than its Eastern equivalents, however: Enlightenment. When most people think ofEnlightenment they see in the word the light and are reminded of the divine light in us, which we all traveltowards. But light in English has another meaning: not heavy! Being enlightened means, literally, lighteningup! Dont take yourself serious, or anything else for that matter. Tere is an old Indian saying: Beware the spir-itual man that takes himself seriously! And many of you know how we here do so love laughter and humor. Wethought that these newsletters might be getting a bit heavy now and then and that we would en-lighten them up.

Conucius said: Is it not delightul to have aGH envelope coming rom distant quar-ters? (Conucian Analects by James Legge,

1893).

Lao-tzu said: Opening a GH envelope is likeboiling a delicate sh. When the envelope is opened bythe Way, Malicious inuences lose their power (ao eChingby A. S. Kline, 2003)

Tey say that when Buddha was in GrdhrakutaMountain he turned an envelope in his ngers and heldit beore his listeners. Every one was silent. Only Maha-Kashapa smiled at this revelation, although he tried tocontrol the lines o his ace. Buddha said: I have the eyeo the true teaching, the heart o Nirvana, the true aspecto non-orm, and the ineable stride o Dharma. It is notexpressed by words, but especially transmitted beyondteaching. Tis teaching I have given to Maha-Kashapa.

Tough there are many uncertainties about the interpre-tation o the materials in that envelope, it is widely rec-ognized to be a Global ea Hut monthly envelope. Wehope that urther studies will throw more light on thematter.

Vietnamese Zen Master Tich Nhat Hanhteaches us: You must be completely awake in the presentto enjoy the GH ea o the Month.

Tere are also Tree Jewels (Ratna-traya) as reer-

eed to in Buddhism: ea, Git and a Newsletter.

I always knew this wisdom was here: I remem-ber once, when I was a kid, I asked my ather what abig metal bird in the sky was. He told me then that it

was a Magical Bird (presumably Crane) Lu Yu sat on tocarry GH envelopes to each member around the globe(Siberians did know the Earth was round by then). Ididnt know then it was my destiny to become a part othis radition, but these words somehow echoed in myheart.

I still remember the day I got a GH envelopeor the rst time, like it was yesterday. I recall it especiallyclearly because it was the day ater another winter day in

omsk (I checking Google Maps try looking to the WestoIn-the-middle-o-nowhere). When I ound mysel hold-ing the envelope, I elt a great power. I knew there wassomething inside or sure and elt it was huge, somethingthat could change my whole lie. I elt like pronouncingmysel the High Priest o a new religion. And right at thatmoment, as I was imagining beautiul clothes coveringmy body and the golden throne I would sit on, my wiecame over and asked what I had received. I was araidshe would like the clothes or hersel and told her it wasan invitation to the wedding o my boring uncle Ilyasbecause I was sure she would denitely not be interestedin that.

Te whole next day I was excited. I was walk-ing around ruminating on the new lie I was about tostart: all the women were mine, all the bullies (plural)rom high school were down. I went to the kindergartenand told the nanny I would never sleep in the aternoonsagain (and even made her go to sleep), because my power

was limitless. But then I remembered a phrase rom somevery wise book an old shaman once gave me: With great

power comes great responsibility! Responsibility wassomething I denitely didnt want to take, and thoughone part o me was telling me that with that power I

would be able to cancel the responsibility part, the other

GTH Scriptures

Nonsense by Maxim Shvedov

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was strong enough to make me share this power withriends and amily.

From that time on, surprisingly, my lie has in-deed changed: women have started to come to my apart-ment (without any problems rom my wie), guys romthe neighborhood have stopped taking my lunch boxand started to show up at my tea table instead. Ive alsogot some nice shorts my master was wearing while giving

seminars in Novosibirsk. Even boring uncle Ilyas and awonky Buddhist named Denis (also haunters o the Hutas I learned later) look riendlier now.

Month by month the tension has loosened andI have nally told my wie that uncle Ilyas neither gotmarried nor invited us. (She was not surprised, to tellthe truth.) At rst, I really worried about all this positivechange, because it meant I was becoming a better manand I knew or sure rom the American movies that hap-piness meant the end o the story...

Drop by drop, such worries have let me too. Ielt my body getting thinner and thinner, my mind wider

and wider until the moment I let my physical bodyand transormed into ormless consciousness. I can travellimitlessly now, coming to all o you to share a bowl (ando course stare at you when youre taking a shower). I caneven get into some peoples minds and tell them what todo (Tis is, by the way, how I am writing this essay rightnow: poor guy with a weird name, Kaiya, really believesthe whisper in his head is Divine Wisdom. He is typing

this, not me.)Oh, I am sorry, the nurse has come to give me

my pills; its time or me to go now. o the nurse: Tis ishow you treat a holy man, Lindsey?! You promised me acomic book yesterday! Marrs-Man?! Okay, sounds nice!

P.S.: Few o us know it, but ater receiving a transmissionrom the Scandinavian Gods, our master (aka Granda-ther Stone) had to change his eye or a stone one thatgrants him the power to look beyond what the worldlyman can see. I have proo:

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Wayarer: A person who travels on oot; trave-ler, wanderer, voyager. Yeah, I guess thats me, throughmy relationship with existence. What have I learned soar? Tat Im here. Anything that comes to this spaceand meets me in this moment, I invite with the love andhonesty that ruth embodies.

I wasnt always the kind o person with time or

tea. For a long while I was consumed by a ast-paced,jet-set existence o supercial trappings ueled by theever-popular clich that th