Chan Tea Ceremony

 
 

Tea is medicine 健康. Tea is life 生活. Tea is self-actualization 修行. Tea emerges from the creative reverence humanity holds for Nature's beauty and wisdom. In making tea, we co-create with nature and are reborn with the tea leaves into its second life. In serving tea, we receive the opportunity to infuse love and warmth into life. In brewing tea, we get to be artists playing with yin and yang in an infinite number of expressions. In drinking tea, we are in the eternal now, returning to our original nature.

In Chan (Zen) Tea Ceremony, a vital daily ritual, we cultivate vitality, peace, and wisdom. Integrating coaching with tea, drawing from my experience with individuals and teams, this East-West practice unifies body, mind, heart, and spirit, fostering wholeness in the present moment.

Each course enriches our energy, life force, and subtle awareness until tea, water, forest and ourselves are indistinguishable. Designed with profound respect and context for the spiritual origins of Tea Ceremony, each course honors the ancient philosophy, culture, and Chan (Zen) trifecta of Daoism, Confucianism and Buddhism that is inseparable from tea culture.

Join us for a free community Chinese New Year’s Sit on Feb 1st and Feb 2nd, 2025 by directly joining the calendar invite here.

Level 1 Foundations:

Drinking Tea

7-day online practice

Learn the fundamental elements of tea drinking in a deeply-transformative practice. Enhance receptivity and experience greater vitality, presence, and awareness through essential tools to help you most optimally absorb tea's energy. Take this course repeatedly to deepen your practice and use the heightened awareness upon completion to create your life as you want.

  1. Kneeling 正坐

  2. Absorbing Qi 闻气

  3. Abdominal Breathe work 呼吸

  4. Drink the Sun Method 吞茶

  5. Building Heat Method 连饮

  6. Connect All The Practices 总结

  7. Origins of Tea & Community

You’ll receive14g of Ancient and Wild Tea Tree Meditation Tea

Past Tea Ceremonies:

Cohort 3: Nov 17-23rd 2024

Cohort 2: September 22-28th 2024

Cohort 1: June 23rd-29th 2024

“I’ve been drinking tea my whole life and this is the first time I felt the spirit of tea”
“I’m surprised at how meaningful this is, I’ve never done tea ceremony before. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I checked the news and to-do list, and I don’t know which was worse - both were so upsetting and agitating and that’s how I normally start my day. The contrast between that and starting with tea is so great — it’s unsettling and illuminating to notice”
“I felt myself as a child of the earth and sun, all the seasons within me, the river was running down into the earth as I drank the tea”
“It is the most bonded I’ve ever felt with tea: I was the tea! When the energy rose through my crown, I was the rising steam!”
“I have been drinking intentional tea for years and today was the first time I felt it all coming together — tea as medicine”
“This was one of the most beautiful meditations I’ve ever done.

I’ve been doing yoga and tea for many years, but the mother (water) and father (cup) creating space for the baby (tea) made me think about my ancestors and parents before me, their sufferings and their joy came together in the tea and I started to cry; I felt embraced by the tea, the people who came before us, and the people who made the tea”
“I felt the energy pooling into my lower belly and realized I can live my whole life from here”

Level 2 Play:

Brewing Tea

7-Day Online Practice

Spiral deeper into the interplay of yin and yang within tea brewing and drinking. Enhance your subtle awareness and life force as we explore the theme of harmonization.

When: Feb 23rd-March 1st 2025

  1. Ceramics / Father, Containment

  2. Water / Mother, Flow

  3. Fire

  4. Beauty

  5. Temperature & Time

  6. State of Heart and Mind

  7. Connect All The Practices

You’ll receive 14g of Ancient and Wild Tea Tree Meditation Tea

Level 3 heart:

Relating through Tea

10-Day Online Practice

This course merges my coaching expertise with tea, a truly East-West approach. We partner with tea to deepen our experience of letting go, forgiveness, gratitude, pleasure, passion, embodiment, emotional fluidity, vulnerability, and relating. We combine parts work and attachment work with tea. Tea breathes flow and aliveness into our relationships.

When: TBD 2025

Tenderizing our hearts in preparation for the loved ones we will gather with on the 28th for Thanksgiving!

  1. Letting go

  2. Receiving / Welcoming

3-10. Relationships we’ll be exploring:

Family and Ancestors, Work and Money, Pleasure and Creativity, Shame and Grace, Control and Surrender, Gratitude and Grief

You’ll receive 20g of Ancient and Wild Tea Tree Meditation Tea

Level 4 Origins of Tea:

Making Tea

7-day Group travel Expedition

Embark on a week-long journey into the mystical tea mountains of China to make Chan tea. Experience a shared rebirth with the tea as it transforms from forest to medicine.

Coming March 2026.

Pre-requisite: 60 days of continuous morning tea practice