The Art of Drinking Tea

Early in the morning while people are asleep, I brewed my first cup of tea. I don’t know how to brew tea like the Japanese. For my cup of tea, it is just normal hot boiled water with tea leaves. I like to observe how the dried tea leaves gradually enlarge as they soak up the water. I enjoy watching the tea leaves flow inside the cup. They go up and down like our life. I don’t know how to do tasseography but I can read when each tea leaf has oozed their essence. It expands, and releases its fragrance and colour into the boiling water. It has offered it’s best to me. How often do we live to our life to the fullest like a tea leaf? We need to reflect!

I watch the steam evaporate from my cup. It forms all sort of shapes and sizes. I feel its warmness. From my tongue, I could feel the sun, the moon, the dew, the rain, the earth, the labour work and the fragrance from the tea. I feel the whole universe in my tea cup. You just don’t know how grateful I am to sit here and enjoy my cup of tea. This is my Pure-Land. I gaze out my window and see the crack of dawn.

The Art of Napping

In this hectic 21st century, who has the time to have an afternoon nap? I am one of the lucky people who can enjoy a power nap after lunch. That is why you need to retire early to be able to relish these nectars.

I remember when I was little after morning session from school, my father used to have a 10-20 minutes nap with me. I hated afternoon nap as I was too energetic at that time. My father put his arm around me and said: “Quick go to sleep then we can go back to school for the afternoon session.” It sounds gross to sleep under your father’s armpit. To me it was awesome.

Nowadays life is full on with team meetings, things that we need to deliver, deadlines to meet and so on. Even during the weekend we have so many things to do such as cleaning up the house, shopping for food and catching up with friends. We have a million of things in our little minds, yet there is no time to relax. People at work who fall asleep at their meeting are laughed at. And when we doze off, we feel guilty.

We don’t know how to enjoy life as my dog does. She is having a nap in the morning after breakfast and after lunch. A dog’s life is much better than a human in this case.

The term siesta is the traditional daytime nap, once popular in Spain. A power nap can be a very powerful tool that keeps us from performing at our best and enjoying our life to the fullest. History has showed and you can search on the internet for more information.

It is simple. We just need to have somewhere to lay our body down (on a lawn, couch, bed, inside your car or carpet), relax and fall into sleep.