The Tea Garden Community has a practice of tea meditation

Tea Garden Community


Meditation can be the act of focusing on something as seemingly simple as a cup of tea. The Tea Garden Community has a practice of tea meditation, where you pick up your tea, breathe it in, and bring your mind back to your body. By doing this he says you become fully present in the here and now. He says: “I don’t think of the past anymore, I don’t think of the future anymore, I’m free from the past, from the future, and there is a real encounter between me and the tea.”


Here is a simple method you can practice around your cup of tea, at any time of day. Choose your tea cup, and set it down mindfully, ready to be filled. Select the tea you are going to brew, and boil the kettle. Whilst the water boils, sit and practice a short breathing meditation, simply observing your in breath, and your out breath, as it rises and falls. Taking even these few moments each time you brew a cup of tea, will calm and refresh you. Mindfully, with full attention, place the tea in the cup, or teapot, and pour the freshly boiled water over it. Allow it to steep for 3-4 minutes, again, sitting beside it, simply following your breath.


When the tea is brewed, drink it, mindfully, using the following mindful tea drinking exercise. “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves. Slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life. You must be completely awake in the present to enjoy the tea.

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