[Buddha-l] What's in the tea...

[jkirk]

> Gang,
>
> Jerrold Davis asked for a source for a dharma story. I don't know that
> exact story, but rather a proto-Hindu version where the ascetic Narada
> is shown the power of the "maya" of Vishnu. They go for a walk through
> a barren land. Vishnu asks Narada to go to a village and get him some
> water. Narada begins but gets distracted, lives many years, gains a
> family, loses the family, and finally ends up with an impatient Vishnu
> again, half an hour later, still waiting for his water.
>
> I know this myth from an article by Mircea Eliade, but it apparently
> derives from what Eliade names as the "Matsya Purana." There surely are
> Buddhist versions as well and I look forward to their citations here.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Franz Metcalf
======================
It does seem to be a version of the folkloric Ichabod Crane story, only in
reverse, as Crane falls asleep for a short nap and wakes up centuries ahead.
I forget the tale type name for this one.

As for the tea story, this link does provide some context, close but no
cigar:
http://www.teaculture.co.kr/culture.html

Excerpt:

>From early on, Korean Buddhists recognized the tea ceremony as a form of
meditation, as it was in China and Japan. The idea that the tea ceremony was
a form of meditation was shared not only among Buddhist monks but also among
Confucian scholars, who wrote that's "a cup of tea is the beginning of Zen".
[Confucian--Zen?] Some said that tea was the Buddha, and according to
various historical records, poetry and folk songs, tea drinking was thought
to induce the enlightenment that led to becoming a Buddha, as can be seen in
the tea rite of the seventh-century Pochön Buddhist ceremony. The Chinese
monk Zhaozhou's expression "Have some tea before you go" was often used to
mean "drink tea and reach enlightenment on your own."
Joanna