Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don’t serve them tea.
—Suzuki Roshi, Zen monk and teacher, on how to meditate
THIS morning, like every morning, I got up and went into my kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the water was heating, I quietly put away the dishes left over from last night’s washing up and brushed a few stray crumbs off of the counter and into the dustbin. Soon the tea was ready: a good strong, hot cup of breakfast blend barely tamed with a splash of milk. Moving onto a chair in my living room, I spent the next 10 minutes or so just sitting quietly, taking small quick sips of the hot tea, and watching whatever happened to wander into my mind.
This is my morning ritual, a kind of teacup meditation. The rules are simple: It’s okay to think but not to plan or leap ahead into the day. No strategizing, no ruminating on past hurts, no bright and jangly thoughts.
Just a cup of tea and the simple act of noticing whatever appears. Of course, planning and ruminating and strategizing thoughts can be a part of what appears, sometimes quite powerfully. And other times, even though it’s early morning and the day hasn’t formed yet, I’m already at sixes and sevens and restless as a baby Chihuahua. My effort, if there is any, is to not engage with these thoughts and energies. I’ll have plenty of time later to consider the state of my bank account balance or how long it’s been since my last dental cleaning or whether there will be rutabagas at the market for tonight’s dinner.
Most mornings, my thinking is soft and based on immediate observations. I may notice the sunlight is arriving earlier and that it has shifted so it streams in directly through the window, or that the birdsong has slowed and mellowed now that the early days of spring are almost over. Some mornings, I might hear the clang and clamor of the garbage collection or the urgent but inconsequential chattering of an early dog walker on his cell phone. I might notice a whiff of lingering garlic and pimenton from last night’s chorizo or how the dust has continued to accumulate on the baseboards.
Whatever it is, I try for a state of observation, not opinion. I try to engage in the present and not the past or future. I try to just notice and appreciate whatever this particular morning is bringing forward. I have the entire remaining day to form opinions and take action. There are more than enough hours in my life devoted to doing. These early moments are for the rare and precious state of just being.
Ten or so minutes later, my tea is gone and I’m a little more awake, a little more in my skin, and a little more ready to step out into the impossible task, the enormous privilege, of living a human life.
This is a practice that I do every day. I highly recommend it.
Excerpted from Finding Yourself in the Kitchen (Rodale Books) by Dana Velden
