Tea

Refining your sensibilities does not mean acquiring a taste for high-class living.

The zen monks of ancient Japan could not afford expensive Chinese tea ware and sought another option.
Instead of lavish, expensive goods... the humble, rustic simplicity of Korean tea cups were purchased and appreciated.
A new, humbler, more modest sensibility was formed.

Everything concerning the Japanese tea hut and its associated ceremony was re-designed to cultivate just the appropriate condition of quietude, dignity, ease and reflection.
Nothing was arbitrary or careless.
High ranking people from all over Japan sought the compassion, beauty, simplicity, humility and purity of essence associated with the tea ceremony.
It centred them and brought life into focus for a brief moment, an interlude.

We seek to bring this same mood into our tai chi.
 

Real tai chi always smacks of hearth and home. Deep down, commercial tai chi is essentially shallow.

(Robert Smith)