Day 8 (8.20)- Early-Morning Tea Time

This’ll be a short post since most of our free day today consisted of sleeping after waking up at 4am during our temple stay to meet for our tea ceremony. Tea ceremonies are very important in Buddhist temples, as they are a time for the sunims to speak with the zen master to share their minds and ask their questions.

First we started with a bow….

Then cleaned the cups for serving…

Then poured the tea into the brewing pot….

And then mixed and served the brew amongst our friends…

This was the conclusion of our temple stay which was an enlightening experience for all to experience a culture and religion that was much different, yet also very similar from what many westerners are used to. My biggest takeaway was something our sunim said at the beginning and the end of the stay: “Don’t do things for just notoriety and if you want something, work for it. Don’t expect it to come to you with no work.”

Regardless of religious background, I think that’s some pretty good advice for a group of college students….