The Healing Qualities of Mindfulness

Excerpted from
Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart
By Tara Bennett-Goleman

The phrase "tea mind" refers to the Zen-like qualities of awareness inspired by the Japanese art of tea-harmony and simplicity, a mind alert but at rest, clear attention to the moment. During the tea ceremony, attention focuses on the present, as we savor the subtle details of the occasion: the taste of the tea, the aroma of the incense, the sound of the whisk as the host mixes the green tea powder into a frothy brew. We slow down to appreciate the gracefulness of the movements, the silent communication, the simplicity of the room, the beauty of each tea object. The mind grows empty, and each movement becomes more full. Nestled in timelessness, attention wraps itself intimately around each moment. In the tearoom no one wears a watch. You forget about time as you settle into the present moment. There's nothing to discuss except what pertains directly to the tea experience at hand. There is nowhere else to be but the present. You are just as present to the bare moment even when you are outside the tearoom, in the tea kitchen, where you prepare and clean up. No one sees you there, but you sustain a mindful awareness as though you were serving the bowl of tea to your guests in the tearoom. When this timeless presence is extended beyond the tearoom into life, it inspires more awareness. We are more present to our everyday experiences: being with a moment more fully, not rushing on to the next moment or lingering in the previous one, but simply being awake to the present.

Some years ago as a tea student I experienced tea mind spilling over more often from the tearoom into my daily life, even in Manhattan, where I studied tea. Leaving the school, stepping mindfully down the city streets, I found that the city's collage of sounds, sights, smells, and sensations no longer pulled my mind in all directions at once. They became ways to engage my senses, one after the other, seeing each thing as it came and went, delighting in it all from a center within ... then came the challenge of rush hour on the subway!

We needn't study the tea ceremony or the Japanese arts to become mindful, but these meditative arts do offer one model for bringing a more focused sensibility to our activities and inner life. If we cultivate a practice of mindfulness meditation, we can enhance any activity with an attentive presence. There's a vast difference between drinking a morning cup of tea with full attention and drinking it while preoccupied by our plans for the day.

This same awareness can be brought to how we relate to our emotions. Our emotional reactions often distract us from the present, filling our minds with relentless thoughts about another time and place, filling our bodies with turbulent feelings. The timeless presence of tea mind, a form of mindfulness, offers a direct antidote to this inner turmoil.

A Surrender to the Present. The traditional Japanese arts, like tea and flower arranging, are an amalgam of art and philosophy, embracing spirituality, artistic enrichment, and personal enlightenment. Inspired by the Zen tradition, they have always meant more than a purely aesthetic appreciation, though that is sometimes emphasized more than the spiritual aspect of cultivating a refined awareness. My teachers have embodied both dimensions.

My first tea teacher was a colorful woman in her late seventies who had a playful spontaneity and depth. She had suffered a lot in her life, having outlived her husband and two sons, both of whom died tragically. She turned to Zen meditation and to tea as a refuge and a place to grieve silently and to channel her pain into creative and meditative practices.

She was a mentor for me in this way, a living example of transforming suffering. Though she never complained, I could sometimes sense her sadness. Her artistic expression seemed to include her feelings of loss, a woven tapestry of inquiry and meaning, of subtle adjustments and understanding, of wondering without needing answers. All that brought a quiet depth to her silence during tea.

On a tranquil afternoon in her tearoom, she offered to serve me a bowl of tea. As she whisked the green powdered tea, I noticed how her hands mirrored the etched lines of the antique tea bowl, casting new light on the weathered beauty of old age. The blue veins and brown spots on her porcelain skin revealed wabi, the well-defined character of something seasoned with age.

Bringing the tea to a close, she gracefully lifted the long bamboo dipper and refilled the urn with fresh cold water. As I listened to the water pouring into the silence, I heard her whisper, "We give back to the waters of life that which we have taken away."

This quality of being attuned to and surrendering to the mood of the present is invaluable when dealing with emotions. Some things in life can't be changed, but we can change our inner relationship to them. Accepting their presence mindfully helps us hold even roiling emotions with a depth of spirit, a soulful wisdom.

A Fight in a Tea Garden. On our way to one of the serene Zen gardens of Kyoto, my husband and I are lost in a disagreement. He feels I have overreacted; I feel he has been insensitive. The matter unresolved, we arrive at the entrance gate, both of us still fuming.

How could he be so thoughtless? My mind is still caught in our disagreement as we pass through the gate, or roji. Then I think of its meaning: the roji symbolizes leaving behind the dust and troubles of the world.

As we pass from the ordinary to the extraordinary world, the harmonious placement of the stepping-stones on the path has a stilling effect on my mind: Well, maybe he didn't realize what he was doing....

Glancing at a willow tree beside the path, my gaze rests on a delicately curved branch. Its graceful simplicity invites me to the present moment, softening the edges of my mind state. I notice the same sense of wonder in my husband's eyes.

The dust of the mind scatters with the gentle wind. A single leaf falls.

That moment in the Zen garden reminds me how delighting in the present can soften even the most hardened emotional attitudes, as this line from a Zen poem reflects: "Even the general took off his armor to gaze at the peonies."

The interweaving of aesthetic, philosophic, and emotional threads that the meditative arts cultivate exemplifies how we can bring a mindful presence into the daily workings of our emotional life.