When you begin down an Eastern path, and Cha Dao mostly heads East, you
quickly realize the important role language can play in our thinking, and
consequently our insights. For the most part, we come to love the ancient
spiritual words in languages like Sanskrit and Chinese - for their subtlety
and breadth. There is one English word we've come to like better than its
Eastern equivalents, however: "Enlightenment". When most people think of
"Enlightenment" they see in the word the "light" and are reminded of the
light in us, which we all travel towards. But "light" in English has
another meaning: not heavy! Being enlightened means, literally, lightening
up! Don't take yourself serious, or anything else for that matter. There is
an old Indian saying: "beware the spiritual/religious man that takes
himself seriously!" And many of you know how we here do so love laughter
and humor. We thought that these newsletters might be getting a bit heavy
and that we would en-lighten them up.
On Wu De's trip, while looking for a
gift to bring home to his beloved Kaiya, he came across a tea called "Pink
Lady" and thought of Kaiya immediately. Kaiya was unnervingly delighted to
receive this gift, and rushed home to brew it right away. We're not quite
sure what happened, but he hasn't been quite the same ever since. It seems
this this powerful tea may have set free a repressed personality, which,
frankly, many of us had always suspected was in there! Funny enough, "Kaia"
is a girl's name in the Northern European area where this marvelous tea
hails from!