Tea and Buddhism

Tea has a close connection with Buddhism. Bodhidharma came to China from India during the Northern and Southern Dynasties （420-589） and he founded the Zen Buddhism in China. He did meditation facing the wall in Shaolin Temple of Songshan Mountain for nine years. It is said that once during his meditation, his eyelids were heavy and he felt sleepy. He simply tore them off and threw them on the ground, where later a tea tree grew up dramatically. This is the earliest story about tea and Buddhism.

Later, the relationship between tea and Buddhism became closer and closer. The monks in the temples not only drank tea, but also planted tea and made tea. Tea became a must for Buddhist monks to practice Buddhism. Especially in Zen Buddhism, people attach great importance to tea. There is a very famous saying in China, 禅茶一味, as ‘Oneness Of Dhyana (Zen) And Tea’ (禅茶一味), which means that tea has the same power as Zen – to achieve inner peace and to open true wisdom. 

During the Song Dynasty (960-1279), tea seeds were carried to Japan through Buddhism monks. Japan regarded tea as a treasure, and has inherited China’s tea ceremony since the Song Dynasty.

Mahayana Buddhism, which is widely spread in China, takes the practice of the Way of Bodhisattva as its core ideology and code of conduct. The Way of Bodhisattva is based on the example of the Great Bodhisattva in Buddhism. They do not seek benefits for themselves, but always take helping others as their duty. This is consistent with the character of tea. Tea has gone through rooting, germination, picking, withering, frying, baking, pressing into different shapes, packing and spreading to all over the world, being brewed with boiling water, and then flowing into people’s stomach to nourish human’s body and spirit. Can you see that?