When Still Waters Speak: Healing through Tea
Tea leaves. Water. Wood. Fire. Earth. Root in.
My Story
When still waters speak, it serves to illuminate your heart.
Slow down with a sacred tea ceremony
For centuries, Zen monks, taoists and shamans have relied on the Tea Spirit for their healing abilities and ancient wisdom. This is a practice that has been left in the dust of the past as Tea began to be grown and sold as a commodity. I am honoured to be part of the tradition of keeping Tea ceremonies alive, through creating a sacred space in which our beings can sit in silence, turn inward and reconnect to our hearts, through Nature, through love and gratitude for the simple moments in life. From tea lovers to non-tea drinkers, from those who are familiar with the dance of meditation to those restless ones who fear the silence of the mind, tea ceremony will allow you to drop from your head into your heart, often times in the most unexpected ways. In this practice, we sit as love flows from our hearts into the bowls of tea, and it becomes simply something sacred to behold. The ordinary becomes extraordinary. Gratitude flows. Creativity unlocks. We honour the ancient traditions, tea trees and earth, fire, water, mountains and rain, moon, stars and sun – nature's alchemy that is within us and yet, sadly forgotten in today's busy lives. In this soft gentle heart space, I help you to reconnect with your Self through Tea, through Nature. As the Sage Lao Tzu once said, "The Dao is a returning", and so it is that with Tea we can turn inward wordlessly, to return to our hearts, our souls.
Called to serve by Tea Spirit
After a relationship breakdown, years of battling eating disorders and lack of self-love, LiYing first found her spiritual awakening in sound healing bowls, which has subsequently led her to a kundalini awakening and embracing a lifestyle steeped in daily meditation and yoga. When she found tea in 2019 through the lineage of Global Tea Hut in Hong Kong through Fivelements, she found that sitting in reverent silence with tea can take her meditation and manifestations to greater levels. It was inevitable – she answered the call of the Tea Spirit by devoting herself to the teachings of The Way of Tea, Cha Dao, in the Hut tradition. For musings and her tea journey, read more in her blog.
One chance, one encounter
Participating in a Tea ceremony is beneficial for you if...
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You are ready to stop the narrative that doesn't allow you to be the star of your show
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You would like to deepen your intuition
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You desire to awaken to abundance and fullness of life
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You want to be able to mindfully observe your thoughts and cure obsessive thinking for good
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You want to taste clean, "living" Tea leaves that are honoured for their diversity in the environment in which they flourish, biochemical and fertiliser-free, and cultivated in a clean environment with love from the respective farmers. These leaves bridge Heaven and Earth to sharpen our minds while at the same time, awakening our hearts.
There is a saying in Cha Dao: ichi go ichie. One encounter, one chance. We all come together in this space and share this Tea, and then we all part and go our own solitary way, each bearing Tea Spirit with us. In life, there will be times when we all feel helplessness, our knees sunk low and deep into the mud of consternation, lost to the wild abandoning winds. We all need guidance. We all seek advice and solicit for help in times when the shadows elongate. It is in this twilight zone that we often find profundity in a broken heart, the light that gets through the shards. We seek God, the Universe, our inner being, our highest self and thrive in our flow in concordance with the Universe, and this flow is the Dao － in the words of our teacher Wu De, "As the Dao leads, we follow."
In ceremony, we set the stage with the chaxi – tea stage – that serves as a mandala that reconnects us all to the cosmos. The way the bowls stand together, shoulder to shoulder, is also a connection, a symbol of our affinity to the universe. In this lineage, we serve tea in silent meditation, without judgement, ego, or identity.
"Tea is a great way to awaken our harmony with the Sacred and our fellow beings, and has been for thousands of years. The Tea itself is always present, alive and in harmony with Nature. It is Nature. That is why we can return to our harmony by drinking it into ourselves – becoming one with it"
