From October 8th to 14th, 2016 join Wu De (Aaron Fisher), zen monk, tea master, founder of Tea Sage Hut and the non-profit organization Global Tea Hut and author of books such as The Way of Tea, Zen and Tea One Flavor, Tea Wisdom and Tea Medicine, on a 6 day retreat at Casa Cuadrau (Vió, Monte Perdido, Huesca), with the purpose of deepening your meditation and Cha Dao (The Way of Tea). We’ll delve into the ancient tradition that unites Zen and Tea and discover how tea can help us live more consciously in our daily lives.
Throughout the week, Wu De will guide us towards understanding the meaning of the famous Zen saying, “Zen and Tea have the same flavor.” He’ll instruct us on meditation and its relationship with tea. We’ll learn how our Zen mind affects our tea and how to prepare tea in a Zen state so we can then extrapolate the teachings to our daily lives.
We’ll rise early each day and begin with morning chanting and, since water plays such a fundamental role in tea preparation and tea ceremony, we’ll benefit from the magic, beauty and purity of being at the largest calcareous mountain range in Europe and each day embark on walking meditations to a very special fountain to bring back the day’s water. Throughout the week we’ll also take a couple of longer hikes to enjoy outdoors tea sessions in pristine natural environment making tea with the pure water that we gather.
Throughout the week there will be classes and talks teaching us about the importance of Water, the Gong Fu Tea Ceremony (the most skilled type of tea preparation) and Bowl Tea (the art of the simplicity of a bowl of tea)
There will be moments each day for questions and answering and also moments for Dokusan (private meeting between student and master). There will also be time for sharing our Zen by preparing tea with other participants and moments for receiving advice and tips on how to improve our tea service.
More info: http://www.casacuadrau.org/