A Conscious Cup of Tea

A dead person cannot enjoy a cup of tea. But sometimes when we are drinking a cup of tea, if we are just on automatic pilot, how alive are we? How alive or dead to our senses have we become as we are rushing heedlessly about our daily humdrums? We could stop for five minutes and have a conscious cup of tea. We could notice how the cup feels warm and comforting in our hand, breathe in the aroma as it wafts upward, hear the sound of the cup as we set it down on the table or desk. Open ourselves up and make space for the whole taste and pleasure of it. Our mind is not at all interested in a conscious cup of tea. Our mind has long ago decided that it has "done tea" already, and at the first sip wants to slip us into auto-pilot tea. When you can take your tea drinking back from the mind, you start to see how you are not your mind.

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