"Drinking dew on clear nights, hands guided by meditation produce a wonderful fragrance"
Feel free to join the online book club at anytime by simply purchasing Korean Tea Classics. Dong Cha Song is 17 stanzas in length, we will go through each stanza week by week. Jump in and join the discussion as you please.
Peace
All,
ReplyDeleteNotes on stanza 14:
This stanza references 1. Picking Tea from ChaSinJeon. See commentary in the comment section here:
http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/korean-tea-classics-book-club-cha-sin.html
Note that Cho-Ui, like many tea masters in Korea, feel that saejak grade tea (picked between April 30th-May 10th) is the optimal grade of Korean tea (not the more expensive and delicate ujeon grade).
"Drinking dew on clear nights"
Is referring to tea's optimal energetic absorption of pure yin energy- imbibing the dew of night. It alludes to the optimal time to pick tea- after it has been soaked in the dew of night. This phrase personifies tea as drinking- something that typically we do to tea. It is also referring to monks drinking of tea on clear nights.
"hands guided by meditation produce a wonderful fragrance"
Is referring to tea's optimal energetic absorption of pure yang energy (resulting in fragrance)- the energetics of the tea maker. It alludes to the optimal way to produce tea- in a state of meditation. This phrase also implies enlightenment as "fragrance" is a frequently used metaphor for enlightenment. It implies that a "fragrant mind" can produce the most wonderful tea.
Peace