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Making Tea

Yunyan was making tea.
Daowu asked him, “Who are you making tea for?”
Yunyan said, “I am making it for another.”
Yunyan said, “Why don’t you let them make it themselves?”
Yunyan said, “Fortunately, I’m here to do it.”

This koan paid me a visit as I was making coffee for my sister and brother-in-law one morning when they were visiting recently. I usually have a double expresso in the morning and I’m good, but I knew my guests to be avid coffee drinkers who drank it by the liter. The prospect of being tied to the espresso machine pushing out double shots of espresso by the liter did not appeal to me. So, I decided to resurrect my French press technique to make more coffee faster allowing me to enjoy breakfast with my companions in a more relaxed way.

As I was trying to remember how many scoops of beans and what setting I used to grind them, the koan paid me a visit. Initially it struck me as being about my making coffee for my sister and her husband and how I felt fortunate that I was there to do that for them. But as I continued making the coffee, measuring, and grinding the beans and heating the water to just the right temperature, I began to get a sense of something else about my experience with the koan and the coffee.

That something else crystallized for me after pouring the water into the press, fitting the lid onto the top with the plunger up and then resting the inside of my wrist on the plunger. As I felt the weight of my relaxed arm slowly push the plunger down without effort, I realized that I was doing it for me. I was the “another” for whom I was making “tea.” Just as I am “all the beings of the world” that I vow to wake.

—David Weinstein

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