Go Drink Tea: A Memorial Day Meditation

Last updated on: November 1, 2011 at 3:02 pm by James Ford

Go Drink Tea: A Memorial Day Meditation 2011-11-01T15:02:07-07:00 James Ford

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Brian Howlett, an old Dharma buddy posted an anecdote about Paul Reps on his Facebook page.

Reps was one of the more interesting characters on the American spiritual scene, particularly active in the middle of the twentieth century. He was born in 1895 and died in 1990. After that the facts get a bit sketchy. While quite young he traveled to Asia. He clearly knew a fair amount about Zen Buddhism and would later partner with the Zen missionary Nyogen Senzaki to create a very important book in my life.

I was still casting about for a spiritual home. It was the Bay Area in the late nineteen sixties, so there were any number of spiritual teachers presenting their wares. But also I read. And I’m pretty sure my first book on Zen was his. If not the first, certainly the second. And, it is the one I continue to remember. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. A very good first book. Perhaps a tad romantic. But a very good book…

For those interested in such, Reps also appears to be the first American to write haiku. His book More Power to You – Poems Everyone Can Make was published in 1939.

So, with that background, on to the anecdote from my friend. It reads:

At one point Reps had traveled to Japan, with plans to visit a respected Zen master in Korea. He went to the passport office in Japan to apply for his visa and was politely informed that his request was denied due to the war that had just broken out in Korea.

Reps sat down in the waiting area. He had come thousands of miles with the plan to study with this master in Korea. He was frustrated and disappointed. What did he do? He practiced what he preached. Reaching into his bag, he mindfully pulled out his thermos and poured himself a cup of tea. With a calm and focused mind, he watched the steam rising and dissolving into the air. He smelled its fragrance, tasted its tasty bitter flavor, and enjoyed its warmth and wetness. Finishing his tea, he put his cup back on his thermos, put his thermos in his bag, and pulled out a pen and paper upon which he wrote a Haiku poem.

Mindfully, he walked back to the clerk behind the counter, bowed, and presented him with his poem, and his passport. The clerk read it and looked deeply into the quiet strength in Rep’s eyes. The clerk smiled, bowed with respect, picked up Rep’s visa and stamped it for passage to Korea. The Haiku read:

Drinking a cup of tea,
I stopped the war.

While I’m not sure it is exactly a haiku, I certainly liked the sentiment. But, I admit the narrative didn’t completely ring true, at least in the factual sense. The lack of specificity in such stories about people makes me want to know where it comes from. I asked Brian and he said a google search gives one source as a couple who’ve included it in a book that appears to be about stress management from a spiritual perspective. It does have a forward by the Dalai Lama, so it probably touches deeper than my first impression from the advertising copy suggests.

As I wandered around I also found a variant reading of the poem, one I find even more on point.

Drinking a cup of tea,
I stop the war.

After posting this, a friend, said, give a little more explication. Okay. You want peace? Try being peace. Not clear enough? How about a student of the Way approached the master Zhaozhou and asked, “What is Buddha?” The old teacher replied, “Go drink tea.”

Enough Zen talk.

The co-author of the book Joel Levey does appear to be the source of the anecdote and the accompanying poem. He says he heard it directly from Reps as a story told many years after the event. Which certainly can explain that lack of specificity, details such as the name of the Korean master, etc, do get dropped as an oft told story gets polished and aims directly to the point. In this case that lovely, lovely poem.

Drinking a cup of tea,
I stop the war.

A good meditation for Memorial Day, I think…

Drinking a cup of tea,
I stop the war.

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