Article: Our Second Anniversary Tea Ceremony

by Mitchell Ratner

One recent Wednesday evening, like every Wednesday evening now, members of the community began arriving just after 7:15 for the Mindfulness Practices Evening. Leaving their shoes and coats in the holistic health center's waiting room, they climbed two flights of stairs to the attic meeting room. The first people to arrive pulled out the mats and cushions and arranged them in a rectangle along the room's periphery. The large meditation bell was set out and the room was transformed into a small meditation hall with space for 20 people to sit.

The early arrivers sat quietly on cushions, facing the blank walls and windows. In a few minutes the room filled. At 7:30 the bell was invited three times to begin the meditation period. Twenty-five minutes later, it was invited once, to end the meditation. People massaged their legs and turned around.

As bell master I informed the group that this evening was special. We would have a tea ceremony to celebrate the second anniversary of the Still Water Mindfulness Practice Center. After a brief introduction to the tea ceremony for a few newcomers, the group waited silently downstairs while the tea servers set up. Several minutes later a bell sounded and the individuals came up the stairs, one by one, and were welcomed to the tea ceremony. Once everyone was settled, flowers were offered. "In gratitude we offer these flowers to all Buddha and Bodhisattvas, wise men and wise women, throughout space and time . . ." Then the ginger-lime tea, the homemade cookies, and clementines were passed on trays from person to person. After a gatha, there was silence except for the crunching of cookies and the sipping of tea.

After most of the cookies had been mindfully nibbled, as tea master I invited people to share: "It is not so difficult telling other people what we do here at the Still Water MPC in terms of activities and schedules. Much more difficult is to describe the spirit with which we do them. The questions for tonight are: What has Still Water meant to you? What difference has our community made in your life?"

Then, one after another, members of the community bowed to the group and spoke. Many of the comments were about having a home or a haven, where the practice of mindfulness was understood and appreciated.

Valerie said:

My feelings about this place are that it is so wonderful to have a community like this, a sangha like this, where I feel safe and embraced by mindfulness. I think someone coming here for the first time can have the sense that this is a place of peace, and presence, and safety and trust. That is a very rare and precious thing today. Perhaps particularly in this city.

We are all engaged in a practice that nurtures certain values and states of mind and states of heart. You don't have to explain a lot of things that you would have to explain if you were talking to a group of people who don't practice. Being here at Still Water continues to water those seeds in all of us.

Joan said:

When I remember it is Wednesday and I can come here, there is this sense of haven. It is a sense of real peace, real safety, and real beauty. [I value being able] to come and experience it and then to be able to connect with those feelings when I am not here, during my daily life, which is not so peaceful.

And Katy read a poem about her experiences over the past year in the community and an actual moment she had during a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh last year in Vermont:

Still Water

A calm pool sits quietly
between rushing stream and raging river.
Fast water moves swiftly by
filling the pool,
yet doesn't disturb the still water,
sitting quietly.

I look in the calm pool
and see my face
feel my heart
breathe my soul
touch the wet
and know I am home

Another theme that people mentioned during the tea ceremony was the quality of the sharing, a sense of being fully accepted in this group. Sharron told the group about her first morning:

I will never forget the first morning that I came. It was about a week after I had bought a house in Takoma Park. I had been looking for a Sangha for a long time. I got Mitchell's number from the Internet and called him up. He said these are the times. So I came one morning at 6:30. I will never forget the feeling when we all turned around and everyone bowed and everyone was smiling at me. It just made me feel so good. And when I left I was thinking, "I think that is the first time I've been in a room full of people who were smiling at me since kindergarten."

Chelsa talked about her experience of the Dharma discussions:

I really enjoy sharing with everyone. Everyone is so open. You don't have to wonder or worry or think: What did they mean by that? I'm just very glad to be here.

Marie talked about the openheartedness of the Still Water community:

. . . there is such richness. Still Water is an invitation to an open heart, which, in turn, invites others to open . . .

It is such a gift. It is contagious. Still Water is a ballast. I can leave whatever it is I am doing at home. The roots go down deep, soak in the energy during our sitting. Then what we discuss strengthens my roots, helps me to open up and then keep that openness. . . . It is truly incredible to have a place so safe that these feelings can come up from deep, deep down. You might not even know that they were there. They come up like oxygen bubbles, leaving me lighter and more open. And that keeps happening here. That is a real gift of the sangha.

Many of the sharings during the tea ceremony had to do with growth: things people had learned, ways they had developed spiritually. Chelsa talked about her enjoyment of the Touchings of the Earth meditation:

They helped to open some things in me. They helped me stop getting in the way and just let my spirit go where it needs to go. I'll just be along for the ride. Life has been really nice since then. There are still times when I want to navigate where I'm going, but I bring myself back. If things come into my life, I realize they are there for a reason. I don't have to fight it. I can enjoy it.

Peter wrote a poem about his experience of morning sittings.

Still Water

A place I have learned
that cars passing by
can ebb and flow
into its waters and out
with the beauty of a sunset and sunrise.

Sharron talked about how for her, as a young adult, the community provided role models:

One of the things that is particularly amazing about Still Water as opposed to other places I've practiced is that there are a lot of parents here, a lot of young mothers, experienced mothers and experienced fathers. All have been open and honest about their experiences. It is extremely rare for a young woman without children to have access to the types of honesty, to get beyond cliches: "Oh, children change your life. Enjoy your sleep while you can." Here people are being very real, able to talk about ambivalence and challenges. I have been watching and learning.

When my partner and I think about having children we know that there would be people we could call on, ask questions to. People here are good role models of dads and of moms, taking care of themselves as well as their families. I think that is extremely, extremely rare.

My sister and I were talking tonight, she is having a hard time, and she said, "I understand now why people get jaded and bitter and cynical and upset with the world. I'm starting to see why that happens." And I said, "Yea, that is the lousy part of growing up." For me, it is really essential to keep seeking out grownups who have open hearts and who are still touching what brings them joy.

Several participants noted that for them what was special about Still Water was that the practice of mindfulness was not somber and inhibited. Creativity and joy were also present. Joan talked about a night the community explored art and mindfulness.

One of the memories that stays with me is the night we did body diagrams. I had a very pregnant body at that time. I drew a little fish inside the diagram, and very big breasts. There is no group of strangers I would do that with. That has been up in my art room ever since. It is a wonderful memory of Still Water honoring my pregnancy.

David talked about experimentation:

I want to honor the creativity and risk taking, trying everything and anything. One memory that sticks with me: Two summers ago, there were fifteen or twenty of us here. We did a silent walking meditation. We trooped out into the street. We must have walked two miles that night. It was such a wonderful night. All the flowers were out. The fireflies were out. We were this long train, this snake, we were all connected. We wound all through Takoma Park and made it back here. It was a very special night.

Chelsa talked about the simple beauty of the tea ceremony:

I was really struck by my first tea ceremony. As others have said, I could feel the peace, could enjoy everyone doing it together. Tonight, I recognize how creative and artful everyone is, the way people pick up the napkins, peel the oranges. When I'm peeling the orange, it feels like I'm peeling away layers inside. Something about the tea ceremony is very, very, special for me.

Once the sharings began, they flowed on. There were more sharings than could be included here, and there would have been even more, but knowing some people needed to get home to sitters and children, as tea master I ended the sharings at 9:20, a little beyond our usual closing time. I did take a few moments, though, as a founding member of the community, to thank everyone for sharing and for supporting Still Water these past two years.

I mentioned that an underlying inspiration for the Still Water MPC was Plum Village. There is an energy, a spirit, there that is often magical. It is wonderful to go to Plum Village. It is wonderful to go to on retreats. But we live here. We hoped it would be possible to create "Plum Village moments" here in Takoma Park, to make them part of our everyday lives.

I noted, also, how much the community has matured. During the first six months, Dharma discussion sharings frequently began with "I don't know much, but . . ." or "What would a Buddhist say about . . . ?" Now, and especially these past few months, sharings begin with "The way I've learned to practice with anger is . . ." or "Having learned to calm down, I am better able to deal with . . ." The community as a whole, in the mornings and in the evenings, often radiates a stability and confidence in the practice that newcomers find comforting and attractive.

We have succeeded, in some degree, in bringing Plum Village home, creating a place in the city where mindfulness could be honored, supported, and nurtured. We have become a concrete manifestation that this is possible.

The anniversary celebration ended with a Still Water MPC rendition of the Plum Village song "I have arrived, I am home." We sang it one time through in Plum Village style, measured and stately. Then we sang it a second time with an upbeat tempo, clapping, and impromptu percussive instrumentation, as rousing as a jazz version of "When the Saints Go Marching In."

And then there was hugging meditation.

This article recounts Still Water's Second Anniversary in January 2001. It was published in Friends on the Path: Living Spiritual Communities by Thich Nhat Hanh, compiled by Jack Lawlor (Parallax Press, 2002)