There’s a moment in tea practice when the mind stops trying to do something with the tea. The tasting quiets. The evaluating fades. What’s left is a kind of simple presence, awake, grounded, unforced. The senses settle into what is already there: the weight of the cup, the warmth of the liquid, the quiet spaces between inhalations and exhalations.
That’s often the moment when meditation naturally wants to begin.
I’ve said it for years, half-joking and fully serious: tea is a gateway drug to meditation. A few bowls soften the edges, settle the nervous system, and make stillness feel less like a demand and more like an invitation. The body begins to trust stillness, the mind begins to trust spaciousness, and the rhythms of life seem to slow just enough for presence to arrive.
This week, we’re leaning into that threshold, using tea not as an escape from practice but as a way into it. The bowls become the bridge, the ritual that brings us closer to our own capacity for awareness and clarity. In this way, tea and meditation are not sequential acts. They are parts of the same unfolding.
This Week in Practice: The Work of Sitting
This week’s practice is about making space to sit, about giving yourself permission to return to stillness again and again.
We often recommend thirty minutes of meditation, not as a strict requirement, but because that amount of time allows the body and mind to settle fully. It gives you the chance to feel the edges of tension soften, to notice the subtle currents of thought and sensation without needing to act on them. Still, practice doesn’t depend on ideal conditions. Even five minutes is enough to reconnect. Ten or fifteen can become a gentle container for presence. What matters most is consistency and the willingness to return, over and over, to this simple act of sitting.
Begin with at least three bowls of tea. Let the body arrive. Let the breath slow. Let the edges soften. Feel the weight of the cup in your hands, the aroma rising, the warmth entering the body. Tea prepares the ground. Then, without changing rooms or shifting gears too dramatically, sit. Meditation lets the roots grow.
The meditation we recommend is Silent Illumination, as taught by Guo Gu. This is not a technique of concentration or visualization. There is nothing to fix, chase, or manufacture.
Sit upright and relaxed. Let awareness be open and inclusive. Thoughts, sensations, sounds, and emotions are all allowed to arise and pass without interference. When you notice the mind tightening, narrating, or drifting, gently return to simple presence, awake, embodied, and clear. No need to suppress thought. No need to follow it either.
Thirty minutes is an ideal container if your life allows it, but this practice works at any length. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen. What matters most is letting stillness become familiar. Let your sitting be a place of return, a safe harbor for attention, a reminder of the quiet intelligence already present within.
Five Element Insights: The Slow Turn Toward Spring
According to the Chinese calendar, we’re approaching the Spring Festival. Even if the world around you still feels firmly winterbound, energetically we’re beginning the long transition from Water into Wood.
This is not a sudden shift. Wood does not mean instant momentum, clarity, or outward growth. It begins quietly, underground. Its energy is subtle, patient, and deliberate. This is a time for laying the groundwork, not for trying to force motion or achieve sudden clarity. The work of this moment is not acceleration. It is establishment, deep and steady.
Over the next month, focus on laying a stable foundation:
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Establish a meditation practice that feels sustainable, not heroic. Let it become part of your daily rhythm rather than an occasional or pressured act.
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Let slowness be part of the process, even as Wood energy stirs within. Trust that growth will follow naturally when the roots are strong.
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Notice where you expect yourself to suddenly “go” somewhere, and allow yourself to stay a little longer instead. Pause before acting, feel before moving.
Strong growth later depends on deep rooting now. By embracing stillness, patience, and consistency, you cultivate resilience and clarity that will serve every part of life in the weeks and months ahead.
What We’re Drinking: Song of Orpheus
Back in stock after six months, Song of Orpheus is a tea that feels like it has been waiting for you.
Deep, clear, and exceptionally clean, it offers a dark red infusion with an elegant, balanced sweetness. The time and care in its storage have brought the elements together into something steady and refined, with a richness that feels grounding rather than heavy. Each sip encourages attention, patience, and a quiet presence that mirrors meditation itself.
It’s a tea that supports sitting, quiet, composed, and patient enough to stay with you through long practice. Its energy is gentle yet steadfast, reminding us that depth often comes in subtle, unhurried layers rather than grand gestures.
Current Inspiration: Zen for Nothing (2016)
A quiet, contemplative documentary that immerses you in the daily life of a Zen monastery, where zazen (seated meditation) is the heart of practice. With minimal narration, the film lets the rhythms of sitting, silence, and mindful daily work speak for themselves. The viewer is invited to experience posture, presence, and patience, less through instruction and more through immersion in the ongoing flow of practice. Watching it can cultivate an awareness similar to sitting meditation itself, where stillness is encountered in its pure, lived form.
Friends of Living Tea: Yamin Chehin
If you’ve met Yamin, you know something shifts.
Yamin is Colin’s qigong teacher, a longtime collaborator, and co-facilitator on Living Tea retreats. She carries a rare combination of ethereal sensitivity and embodied grounding. A true force, deeply present, unmistakably herself, and quietly transformative.
Born in Buenos Aires and shaped by years of travel and study across cultures, Yamin’s path has woven together Taoism, Buddhism, Chinese Medicine, and mindfulness in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. She is a Licensed Acupuncturist, herbalist, Senior Instructor in 8 Treasures Qi Gong, and a guide in rites of passage and council work.
Her work is rooted in listening, listening to the body, to story, to land, and to the wisdom moving through animals, plants, minerals, and people. She lives and practices on Kumeyaay land in San Diego, tending relationship as carefully as energy. Being in Yamin’s presence is a reminder of what is possible when practice is lived, not performed. Time spent with her often shifts perspective, slows perception, and opens awareness in a way that lingers long after a retreat ends.