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Buddhist Chaplaincy Speaker Series - Steeping Sati: The Tea Ceremony as a Creative Spiritual Intervention with Tilda Zheng

Introduction

Jim: Okay, welcome everyone. Welcome. Thank you for being with us today for the Sati Center's ongoing Buddhist chaplaincy speaker series. Today we're delighted to have Tilda Zheng with us, and she's going to be talking about Steeping Sati: The Tea Ceremony as a Creative Spiritual Intervention.

I was lucky enough to do a unit of CPE^[1] with Tilda a few years ago, and she is such an imaginative and creative person. Everything she did in the hospital just always had this creative quality to it and she was always thinking in a way that other people weren't thinking. So I was really excited to have her join us and talk a little bit about one aspect of this kind of creative practice she does through tea. I'm just going to say a few words of introduction and then I'll hand it over.

Dr. Tilda Zheng is a Buddhist chaplain and tea master operating at the intersection of Eastern Wisdom and Western Care Systems. As the executive director of the International Buddhist Chaplaincy Foundation and head facilitator for the Center of Lay Chaplaincy, she designs curricula across the US and China. A former Buddhist chaplaincy professor at University of the West, Tilda is known for field-testing the tea ceremony in unpredictable real-world contexts, from clinical front lines to public parks, proving that healing and joy are universal languages.

Okay, so Tilda, please, over to you, and thank you so much for being with us today.

Steeping Sati: The Tea Ceremony as a Creative Spiritual Intervention

Tilda Zheng: Hi everyone. Good morning. Thank you, Jim. Thank you so much for making this happen, and thank you for the lovely introduction. It's very humbling to hear that. I just cannot imagine the time has gone so fast. Three or four years ago, Jim and I worked in LA General Hospital for the whole summer, just like Dharma brothers and sisters, walking up to the beds and discussing the Dharma.

So today I'm going to share my little journey about tea and about serving different communities. More than that, I want to hear from you about your practice and your reflections. My slides will be short and will be story- and image-based, and then we would like to open the conversation with you. So I'm going to share my slides. Are you able to see that? Okay. And I have a little piano music.

Jim: The music's not coming through yet. We see the slides though.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you for letting me know. Okay, now I can hear it. Two cups, one mountain in the space.

Jim: Sorry, Tilda, the slides have disappeared now. But that's a good practice of wanting to have all of them. How about now? We can see the slides and now the music stops. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to do both at once.

Tilda Zheng: Okay. How about just let me safely enjoy the music. Thank you for all of your patience.

Two mountains, two cups, one mountain, and the space between two people. That's all this is. That's all it needs to be. My name is Tilda. When I was invited to speak here, I smiled because the title of my doctoral project is Steeping Sati^[2]. And here I am at the Sati Center. Some things just find their way to each other, like a tea leaf into a cup of hot water.

For years, I've been carrying a teapot to places most people don't associate with the tea ceremony: homeless shelters, food banks, hospitals, public parks, senior homes, Zen centers, church lawns, and beaches. What I found is something that 5,000 years of history already knew. Tea doesn't just soothe the body; it opens the heart. And that, I believe, makes it one of the most underused tools in spiritual care. So today I'd like to take you on a journey from ancient mountains to modern psych wards, from chemistry to compassion. And maybe by the end, you will look at a teapot a little differently.

Nearly 5,000 years ago, so the story goes, Shennong^[3], the divine farmer in China, was boiling water beneath a tree when a single leaf drifted into the pot. He drank it, and something shifted. A clarity he couldn't name; a stillness that didn't ask for anything. The leaf was Camellia sinensis, and the world was never quite the same.

Centuries later, tea found its way into the monasteries. Buddhist monks discovered what Shennong only intuited: that tea sharpens the mind without scattering it. That it could hold you in the present moment the way a bell holds silence after it rings. There is a phrase from this tradition: "Tea and Zen, one taste." The preparation of tea became indistinguishable from the practice of presence. You might recognize the practice by another name: Sati.

Tea didn't stay in the temple. It traveled on the backs of horses and mules, on the shoulders of porters. It crossed some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth. The Tea Horse Road stretched from Yunnan province into Tibet, through mountain passes where the air was thinning and the trail disappeared. Tea was traded for horses. It became currency, diplomacy, culture. One leaf connecting civilizations. And at every point along that journey, from sage to monk to potter to stranger, the gesture was the same: one pair of hands offering, another pair receiving. Tea has always lived in the space between people.

So what's actually in this leaf that makes it extraordinary? Three compounds worth knowing. Caffeine, you are familiar with. Polyphenols, especially one called EGCG, which are powerful antioxidants. And then the quiet one, L-theanine, the amino acid found almost exclusively in the tea plant. L-theanine is the reason tea doesn't feel like coffee. It's the reason a monk could drink three cups and sit still for four hours. It crosses the blood-brain barrier and does something remarkable. It promotes calm without sedation. It replicates the alertness you feel during meditation—that settled quality of attention. L-theanine supports exactly this state.

With caffeine alone, you have a long spike, a jitter, a crash. But caffeine paired with L-theanine, as nature designed it in the tea leaf, brings smooth energy, sustained focus, and a gentler arc. Researchers call this kinetic synergy. I call it elegant.

The research goes further into stress regulation, gut health, neuroprotection, and cardiovascular health. Tea is generous with its benefits. I'm not here to give you a literature review. I'm here because no molecule can fully explain what happens when you share a cup with another human being.

So take a breath. The science is done. Now we'll listen to the story of the tea.

This is Gongfu tea. The word "Gongfu" means "with great skill" or, maybe more accurately, "with devoted attention." A small clay pot, a fairness pitcher, tiny cups. The tea is steeped again and again, each round revealing something new about the leaf. You measure the water temperature. You watch the leaves unfurl. You pour with intention. If your mind drifts, you will oversteep the cup. The tea keeps you heedful. The real gift of Gongfu tea isn't in the cup; it's in what it does to your attention after you put the teapot down.

Describe the same steps to a therapist—sensory engagement, present-moment awareness, deliberate pacing—and they'd call it a grounding exercise. Describe them to a meditation teacher, and they'd recognize Anapanasati^[4]. Tea practitioners have been doing both for centuries.

This is a clay teapot made from clay found only in the Yixing region of China. The material is porous. It absorbs the tea over time, deepening with each use. The pot becomes seasoned, richer, more itself. There's a metaphor in this somewhere; I will let you find it.

This is me and my Japanese tea master, Sensei. I grew up in Sichuan, one of the great tea regions of China. Tea was everywhere. The scent of jasmine is in my family home, but I wanted nothing to do with it. It was bitter; I was certain about that. Years later, I sat a Chan^[5] meditation retreat. Days of silence, watching the mind rise and fall. On the last day, the tea master gave me a cup. The tea was no longer bitter. Nothing had changed except me. That experience became my doctoral work and the very practice I am sharing with you today.

Life can be as spiritual as we are willing to make it. As poetic, as lyrical, as alive. And this is Frank, the most beautiful gift tea ever brought me: my husband. Just a boy and his toys. Together we've been bringing tea to communities across Los Angeles. What started as a quiet experiment became something I can only call Metta^[6]. Hospitals, churches, food banks, senior homes, beaches, parks, campus lawns—rooms where people speak different languages and share none of them. A cup held out is a sentence everyone understands.

Starting in St. Camillus Center, a tea ceremony for my CPE cohort, the people I trained beside. Jim is right there in the front. It's the reason we are having this conversation today. Some of the most important doors opened for me because someone you shared tea with remembered you.

The LA County Department of Mental Health conference. Frank and I were serving tea. The people who spend their days holding space for others—clinicians, chaplains, caregivers—soften the moment someone holds space for them. I think many of you know what that feels like.

University of the West. An afternoon tea break. No agenda, no program, just a floor, a pot, some snacks, and the luxury of an unhurried hour. Sometimes the most therapeutic thing you can give to somebody is the gift of unscheduled time.

Zen Center Los Angeles. Monastics and lay people on the grass. Teacups on the table, flowers, a fan with calligraphy, and if you look carefully, a golden retriever who was not on the guest list and clearly felt otherwise. That's the spirit of these gatherings. Whatever shows up is welcome. Whoever you are is enough.

All Saints Church in Pasadena runs a weekly shower program and a food bank for the unhoused. We brought our tea station. These folks came for a shower and a meal. They stayed for the tea. Look at those faces. For however long that cup lasted, nobody was unhoused. Nobody was a case number. They were guests. They were people who mattered. This is what it looks like when you don't try to fix anything. You just show up. You just sit alongside.

The Episcopal Diocese annual conference. I set up a tea table and spent the whole day pouring and listening. Tea doesn't ask what tradition you belong to.

Tea at dawn. We set up before the sunrise. Candlelight giving way to the daylight. Tea to ease the transition. There is something about sharing tea at the edge of the day, when the world hasn't yet decided what it's going to be, that invites a different kind of beginning.

What would a world without walls look like? This was Echo Park 2021. The world was locked behind walls, and two strangers sat under a piece of fabric in the park and exchanged their life stories over tea. No one asked them to. Nothing was organized. They just stopped.

On the right side is Jana, my first CPE supervisor. During the pandemic, we went to MacArthur Park every week, the most complicated park in Los Angeles. We set up a listening station and a tea setup side-by-side. Around us was noise, crisis, unpredictability—everything a controlled environment is not. And in the middle of it, week after week, we built the most beautiful connections with people from all walks of life. And I found the four principles of the way of tea: harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. Not because the tea can stop the chaos. The refuge is inside every heart. We just need to allow space for it.

This is one of our listening stations, bringing tea and an open ear. The tea is the invitation. The presence is the service. Offered freely, received with joy. One woman told me it was the only time all week someone looked her in the eye and asked how she was doing. That isn't a clinical intervention. That's a spiritual care one.

I love this picture. This is a volunteer at LA General Hospital. Their job is to bring laughter to patients in the hospital. Pitching rounds, holding a tiny cup of tea. The people who care for others are often the last to be cared for. Tea doesn't fix that, but it notices.

At Children's Hospital LA, I ran a weekly tea class. Doctors, nurses, security guards, people from across the hospital gathering to recharge together. One guard told us it had changed how he greeted every impatient driver in the parking lot because he started each morning with tea and three slow breaths. The practice didn't stay in the room. It followed him to the door.

Santa Monica Beach. Tea with strangers. No sign, just a blanket, a teapot, and the ocean. Some stayed for an hour. Some cried. Some just watched the waves and said nothing. All of this was enough.

The best things in life are free. I deeply believe that. Just like the Buddha's teachings, you just have to read the fine print: only if they are freely given.

This is tea. This is spiritual care. This is what it looks like when you stop trying to heal someone and simply be with them. The calligraphy in this photo reads "One time, one meeting." Every encounter is singular, unrepeatable, and worthy of your highest hospitality. That is all the tea ceremony asks of us. And I think it's all that chaplaincy asks of us, too.

Thank you. Thank you all for being here and bearing witness.

Q&A and Reflections

Tilda Zheng: So I'd like to hear what landed for you, what came up, what you are curious about, and what connects to your own practice. So let's open the conversation.

Kathleen: Tilda, would you be willing to share your email or how we can get in touch? I'm someone who's been doing Japanese tea ceremony. I have a tea hut, which is my virtual image in my yard.

Tilda Zheng: Wow. Is it real?

Kathleen: Yeah, it's a real tea hut, but this is just a photograph. So, I've been learning as a student Japanese tea ceremony for many years. And then I took on this mission of finding ways to share all the benefits, or some of them—whatever the person could use in their own life—that I had achieved. How will I do that? When I got into a Master's in Mindfulness Studies program, I made that my research. So I have a lot to talk to you about.

My thesis was on tea and dialogue, using easily learned aspects of Japanese tea ceremony in a practice called Insight Dialogue, which is based primarily in Buddhist Vipassana^[7] practice, but many others as well, as a way to combat the health risks for older people living in the community. I created videos of that. Most recently, I've created a video of my own experience with tea and how I found it in nature and tending my tea garden and what it really meant to me.

I found someone who was living their life by those values you mentioned: harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. But the most amazing thing happened. A woman living in New Zealand found my thesis. It was a master's thesis, not a PhD, and she said, "I'm trying to find ways to use tea ceremony to support people with dementia and those who care for them." We talked, and she saw the same things I did in tea, and that you see, and many people do. So we're working on: can we come up with a version of the practice or what kind of ways could this support that population?

But like you, I see the spirit is the point, and the context is very adaptable. I intentionally designed tea and dialogue so it could be creative dialogue. It could be used online. It could be carried into an older person's home. So I'd love to exchange ideas with you. Clearly, you have experience with both Chinese and Japanese tea. If you'd be willing to share how we can reach out to you, how I can read your thesis, that kind of thing, it would be really lovely to follow up.

I do recommend to all of you—I am new to this community, I have attended some others of your kind offerings—but this is a very deep and broad and lifetime opportunity that tea opens up. Everything is completely visible and available, but there's no end to the depth, and it's really needed right now. I would say there's so much distraction and so many ways that we're not allowing ourselves to slow down and experience real peace with each other through whatever means, a cup of tea being a good one. Thank you.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you so much, Kathleen. That's so beautiful. It just melted my heart. First of all, absolutely, I would be more than happy to share my contact and connect with all of you. And second, it's so touching to hear that your research and practice involves Insight Dialogue, especially your passion to serve the community. I have been working in health communities for the memory unit. All these responses from the folks show that it works. With and without words, it works. Is it possible for you to share the link of the video in the chat with us, Kathleen?

Kathleen: Yeah, I'm happy to do that. There's my last one, which was my own experience, but there's also a blog post. I have a blog, radiantrefuge.blog, which has a way to get to my thesis videos on tea and dialogue. I'm happy to put those both there so people can check them out.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you so much. Thank you, Jim, so much. I'm in the process of simplifying my life to be a nobody. So I will just type my email in the chat. It's very easy to remember: Tilda Waking Up.

Jim: I have a question about the way you created what I saw as like a sacred space. Even in some of the images in the park or at the beach, you had this frame with just a single piece of fabric draped over the top. On a practical level, it wasn't doing much, but clearly, that took time to set up, and it's like you're carving out this sacred space which people can cross the threshold of and come and join you for this ceremony. There's this aspect of ritual or ceremony which you touched into, but I'd love to hear a little more about how conscious that is. Sometimes if there's too much of a sense of ceremony or elaborateness, it might be a resistance for folks to enter in. It doesn't feel welcoming. But then you need enough of that to feel like there's some kind of special transformation occurring. I'd love to hear how you work with that dynamic of creating the sacred space but keeping it very welcoming in this kind of ritualistic way.

Tilda Zheng: That's a wonderful question, Jim. So first of all, the idea was not my original idea. Like 20 years ago or something, I read an article about an artist whose name is Pierre Sernet^[8]. He created this structure of a tea house as a symbol to bring around the world and offer the stranger a cup of matcha. It's the typical type of Japanese tea, which was his practice too, and with silence. And it popped out to me.

Here I'm going to tell a little bit more about my own story. I moved to this country nine years ago to pursue Buddhist chaplaincy because there was nothing about spiritual care or chaplaincy in China yet. But I didn't speak English. So I started with an ESL program to study English. It was really hard to be a chaplain without conversation, right? So, how could I do that? People just showed up in my dorm at the university day in and day out. When I recalled this story, I told myself, how about I borrow this idea and create this space with this little ritual to evoke their inner wisdom?

So, I ran to Home Depot, and I asked the very lovely staff there to cut water pipes and build this part of a tea house for me. I didn't know how to offer tea for people in this country with different backgrounds and beliefs, but all the wisdom and experience was taught by my guests. They let me know what works. They let me know what kind of ritual or process feeds them the most.

For example, in the hospital, the nurses told me that what they hate but appreciate the most is sanitizing their hands. They have to do that hundreds of times a day. It ruins their skin, but they have to do that. It's life protection. I borrowed—I think, Kathleen, you are familiar with pouring water, washing your hands before you walk into the tea house, right? It's part of the tradition in Japanese tea. So, I set up a hand-washing station and offered them handwashing. I poured the water from the very beautiful bamboo dipper and poured the water on their hands and guided them in a micro Metta meditation to cultivate goodwill for themselves. "May this water wash out the stress, the illness, and bring all the joy and purity."

And the nurses were crying when they were doing that. They started to build this habit at the bedside before they walked into the room to sanitize their hands; they have this goodwill for themselves and the patient. And when they finished the visit and walked out, they'd wash their hands with Metta. All of these come from the guests. They are my tea master. I don't know if I answered your question, Jim.

Jim: Yeah, you did. Thank you. That's lovely. This idea of taking something of the spirit of the hospitality and something that's kind of spiritually nourishing. That's why I mentioned at the beginning, I loved how creative you were when we were in the hospital. The rest of us were all just trying to figure out how to navigate this big crazy hospital, and you were coming up with these beautiful interventions like using a bamboo dipper to wash nurses' hands and evoking this emotional response from them. It was touching something deep inside them, this need for spiritual nourishment or acknowledgement. It's such a simple ritual, but it's so effective. I really appreciate the spirit that you bring forward in all of your work that I've seen. Maybe a lot of it is rooted in tea, I don't know, or it's just part of you, but you just have this wonderful way of figuring out these simple and effective rituals that are very, very powerful.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you so much. It's so humbling, and I would say nothing comes from me. I always believe all of it flows through me, and I give it through me from the universe or from nature. You are so right, just little rituals work so well. Even just the three breaths that the tea guests picked up from the tea table. Even just giving a little cup as a gift for all my guests—it's a container of their memory and also a reminder. I encourage them to use this little cup to have their coffee or water or whatever in the morning. This little ritual is so simple and little, but it can really help them start their whole day centered, still, and in the moment.

So, you're welcome to ask any questions because I can always say no, right? Any questions about the tea, about the stories, about me or anything, please. Diane?

Diane: So I have a mundane question. I went to a matcha tea ceremony and got the impression that there's a worldwide matcha shortage. So, I've got this crossed in my head that there's this scarcity. It evokes my earth fear about climate change and everything and where we're going. And I think, "Oh, no, now we're going to run out of regular tea." Is there plenty of tea?

Tilda Zheng: I think there is plenty of tea if you believe that you have more than enough. Especially when you are willing to share very limited resources with others, you will have the sense that you have more than enough. And also, to logistically answer your question, there is a shortage of matcha in Japan, but lots of Japanese tea companies found very high-quality tea from China to make matcha as well. The Chinese government is working very hard to control chemical use, to control the environment and the ecosystem. So there's some hope there.

Diane: Do you buy your tea here or have it shipped from China?

Tilda Zheng: Oh my god. Yeah, that's an insightful story. I went through a lot of tea shops here, and I had lots of disappointment. So I still only drink tea from China, Japan, Taiwan, but I drink herbs from here. Now in my cup is high mountain tea from Taiwan. It's a green oolong. And these days I start every morning with the first spring harvest of green tea in China. You can feel the life, the tingling on your taste palette. Sorry, I just kind of talk non-stop when I talk about tea. Thank you for the question, Diane.

David: Hi. What are your thoughts on black tea?

Tilda Zheng: I love black tea. I drink tea based on the season and my sensation. So when it's getting cold or I feel I want something warm, I use black tea. And what surprised me is actually black tea carries less caffeine than green tea. So I use black tea sometimes in the afternoon. I would highly recommend you try some very fine Chinese black tea. You would be so surprised to taste the spices there, and the floral notes. That's really beautiful. Thank you.

Christine: My question is more on logistics. How are you transporting? Where do you get your supplies? Do you ever find that you need permits any of the places that you go? Where I live, we wouldn't have to worry about permits, but how are you hauling your gear and where are you getting it? How are you heating your water?

Tilda Zheng: These are all good questions. First of all, because everything is offered for free, I don't need any permission. It's not a business. I never charge people. Even though sometimes people so generously want to tip me, I never receive it. Like last time, I went to a cancer center in the hospital, and after the tea ceremony, the patients ran to their cars to find something to give me. That's really sweet.

Back to the logistics questions. Sometimes I just bring hot water in a thermos. I have some giant thermoses. Sometimes I just bring a camping stove and a camping kettle to boil tea there. Sometimes I cook tea at home. Like for the unhoused, they really love home-cooked chai. So I will bring a giant container with hot chai. I remember one week I ran out of time and I didn't do that. And they were so mad. They asked me, "Tilda, where's my chai? I came here for that." That's very lovely.

I have different containers. I have my wagon. Actually, I'm sitting in my tea house right now. I also have this little picnic basket to carry all the teapots, cups, everything. And I always have other hands to help me. Frank, he's the driver. He is the carrier. He's the cleaner. So yeah, it's good to have tea and people with you.

Christine, when I was doing my presentation, I was looking at your smile. You were smiling all the time and nodding, and thank you for really listening and being with me. Thank you.

Christine: I have been trying to figure out how to do this. I've done guided meditations based on Thich Nhat Hanh's tea meditation and I've been trying to figure out how to do this with my students. I've been trying to figure out the logistics when you're working in senior centers and veterans places. This is exactly what I've been looking for and I didn't even know it. I'm so glad you found me and I found you.

Tilda Zheng: Oh, the universe put us together. And also, for some tea, you can do cold brew; that's even easier. Just put them in a big jar. For oolong tea, it only takes like 4 hours in the refrigerator. And for green tea, it's less. For jasmine, like two hours. And then you just serve from the jar or the container. You can be as creative as you want. It's your tea. Thank you, Christine.

Vanessa: Hi, Tilda. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us. I've so enjoyed hearing your stories about what you offer. And I love seeing other people light up listening to your stories too and be inspired, just like Christine just now. Seeing your photos from CPE, your chaplaincy training, and thinking about the ways in which you really dipped into your creativity in order to be able to serve in the context of CPE.

I think what really landed for me was how you demonstrated that you can offer tea and there's no agenda, there's no schedule, and there's no fixing anything, just an invitation into this space. It's so beautiful. And then I think, Tilda had to be in CPE and write essays and do assessments and present all these clinical observations about what was happening through what you were doing. I'm wondering how that was for you on the one hand, and how maybe as a chaplain, once you start with offering tea, do those conversations sometimes go into something else? I imagine that there are quite profound outcomes or conversations with people that would look a lot more like what we call traditional chaplaincy. I'm wondering how those experiences are for you.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you so much, Vanessa, for having me here and allowing me to share my stories, and thank you for the wonderful program that you are running. You asked very profound questions to bring the conversation to another level.

I'm going to answer the first question: How was it for me to do all the research and writing papers to present while doing this beautiful journey? I would say actually the tea journey, the tea ceremony, unfolded all this path for me. Back nine years ago when I was sitting in the ESL classroom, I had no idea what I'd be doing now. And then I went to the MDiv program. My cohorts and friends let me know how cherished the tea ceremony can be, how useful it can be, and it became my vehicle. Then the department chair suggested I do a doctoral program about that. So I thought, why not, right? I'm doing that anyway. So I just joyfully went through the whole process. I won't say there was no pain in the times I felt I wasn't enough for the writing, but most of the time the story and the process were encouraging me and guiding me.

And to answer another question for you: besides the ritual, how do the conversations go? Let me start with the first encounter with the unhoused. It was happening at MacArthur Park. People call that a very chaotic, crazy park. Lots of drug dealers and unhoused living there. So I set up my tea house for the first time. I was so nervous, and I saw an old gentleman come with his wheelchair, and he was so curious. I still remember his name. His name was John, a 79-year-old veteran. He asked me, "What are you doing here?" So I invited him to sit down and have a cup of tea, and he drank the tea with me, and all of a sudden he started to share about his life. He told me that his adopted father would have tea with him every day. He shared about the wars, shared about how he lost his home, how he was abandoned by his daughter. And in the end, he told me, "You know, I'm going to save some money. Maybe after two months I can buy a kettle and make myself tea."

And of course, I just gave him everything, right? "This is my kettle. This is my tea. This is a cushion. You have all of them." And John left. And when I started to pack up, John was running in his wheelchair to me. He said, "You know what? I feel God loves me."

And I still have a little bag of coins on my bookshelf. In one of the pictures, a lady seemed unwell in the listening lab. Her name was Katherine. When she walked up to my table, everybody walked away because obviously she was mentally disorganized. And when she sat down, I saw there were no teeth in her mouth, and she had just had her meal. So from the beginning, she just spit out everything from her mouth onto my tea table, and I was so unsure about how I could serve this lady, how I could talk to her with tea. She was mumbling, and she stood up and danced and poured all the collections she had in her plastic bags on my tea table. So, it was chaos. But I stayed and still drank the tea from the same pot with her.

After about half an hour, she stood up. Then she bowed to me, and she started to repeat a sutta^[9] that she learned from the past. And she forcefully gave me all the collections that she had. It was all one-penny coins. The rose-golden color of the coin. She poured them into my hand, and I was so resistant to receive them because it was the treasure she had. I said, "Katherine, I cannot accept it. What can I do for you?" And she said, "Look at this. You do all of this for me."

I learned so much from this group. They really taught me the deepest humanity. Some of the folks taught me how to do the dream walk, and some of them just told all their stories. I remember from the beginning, everybody sat down and held their belongings so tightly because it's so unsafe there, and every belonging can be taken away anytime. So from the beginning, everybody just held their backpack or their meal in their arms tightly. But soon they relaxed, unarmed, and started to make friends with each other.

Not only in this extreme environment but in many environments. Like the children's hospital, before the tea class, the doctors, nurses, and the security guard would never talk to each other, let alone share a meal or tea at the same table.

I really want to share another story in the food bank. I also served this weekly tea back in 2022 or 2023 at the Asian Youth Center. They had a food bank, and all the seniors who didn't have resources during the pandemic would come pick up a package for the whole week. Everything was shut down, so they picked up everything from the parking lot. I just parked my car and opened the trunk. So it's a portable tea station.

Jim: While you pull that up, I just want to say we're now at 10:00 a.m. We're at the top of the hour. We're going to invite everyone to stay and continue with the session. If your schedule doesn't permit you to stay for another 30 minutes, please go ahead and leave. Thank you so much for joining us. Those who would like to, please feel free to stay and continue.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you, Jim. And thank you everyone again. Even if you need to leave today, thank you so much for being here and being part of the story.

So this is the food bank. This is a parking lot. I just opened my car and it's a pop-up tea station with two chairs and a little table. In the beginning, people stopped with curiosity. You can see their body language, right? Crossed arms, wearing their masks. And soon people started to open up and smile and make friends. More and more joined us, and they became friends. They started to bring gifts to each other. This tiny bag came from one of the ladies, and they started to bring pizza. One lady lived near a Pizza Hut, so Pizza Hut would give her the leftovers every week. She would bring the leftovers to share with everybody. And then people started to laugh and dance and bring their guitar and sing karaoke. They started to really support each other, give each other a ride, and exercise together. Some of them are still friends till now. Thank you, Vanessa, for your beautiful question to open more stories for us.

Kathleen: I'd just like to say that I've had many of those same kinds of experiences. I did an internship in a senior center and I offered tea to caregivers who were mostly taking care of their spouses. These are older people, and our subject for the dialogue portion was mini-vacations. People spoke about time doing not much, but with family or in nature, and it was so moving. And then the gentleman sitting next to me, African American, said, "I would leave this house where there were many people living together, and I would just run and pick up my friends running to school." And there was such a beautiful sense of freedom.

There's something about tea that allows people to share their hearts without feeling that it's a burden or they have to prove anything. I was so moved. I was sitting there crying with their stories about the simplicity and the humanity of that. It really is true that the simple generous act where there's no other thing to do but to enjoy tea together opens a really important door. It takes so little means to create this incredible, deep, resounding, impactful spiritual support and connection across all kinds of barriers that society would have you think are there that are not. So it's quite powerful. I recommend trying it even if just with yourself. See if you can get to know yourself in a different way.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you so much, Kathleen, for sharing the incredible moments that you bore witness to. You're right, the connection internally and externally is just so beautiful. And you're right, it doesn't even need to be tea. It can be anything, right? I remember in the dementia unit, lots of folks were not able to drink any caffeine. So we just drank water sometimes, or herbs. And also I found humming, dancing, flower arrangement, and painting with tea all work so well. You can think of anything, you can call that Tea+ or your chaplaincy plus. I would invite all of you—it's not about tea, it's something you believe in and you love so much, and you just earnestly share that from the bottom of your heart. Whatever that is, just bring it. Chocolate—you can do chocolate meditation, hand massage, anything, and just be playful. Because nowadays, all of us need to be reminded we have to be playful and joyful.

Sarah: Hi, this is Sarah. I'm joining from India and this is my first time in the sangha^[10]. When you were saying it could be anything, it's something that was already brewing in my head because Indian tea, the way we do it with milk and spices, is very different than Japanese tea. It is not ceremonial in how it is served in India, but the process I find is very ceremonial, you know, the ginger or the clove or whatever spices are put, and how it is brewed in every home is very different. It's like how you take it from your ancestors; it is different in each and every house and every part of India. I was wondering, is it the ceremony part that is more important, or is it just how you bring your presence to it?

Tilda Zheng: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Sarah, for sharing and teaching us about the Indian tradition. I totally agree with you, it's just how you are doing it sometimes. I'm not organized all the time. I remember the first tea session on Santa Monica Beach, I forgot to bring water, so there was no tea. I just awkwardly sat there. But when the strangers sat with me, they just unfolded their stories, and I realized, oh, it's not about the water. Sometimes I will forget my water or my kettle, and it doesn't matter because who is in front of you—that's what matters. I cannot wait to hear more from you, Sarah, about your experience of serving your Indian tea and your heritage from your ancestors to people. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

Jim: Tilda, I have another question. I'm just really struck by, especially in those last photos you showed from the food bank, where you're coming in with this sense of hospitality, there's a generosity, right? There's this act of giving or sharing, and then that seeded for other people bringing pizza, bringing a guitar, bringing music. Everyone finding something in themselves that they can bring and offer. There's this equalizing quality where it's no longer necessarily a host and a guest, but it seems like everyone's been touched and opened up to the sense of abundance or giving or generosity.

And even your story with the security guard at Children's Hospital, where he would then treat people differently as a result of whatever his experience was in that tea ceremony. There's just something very beautiful about that, just the simplicity of the offering and that it has such powerful repercussions. I wonder for you, having been in so many different environments offering this, from a Zen center in Los Angeles to hospitals to food banks to MacArthur Park—very different contexts—I just wonder about your experience of the similarities and differences when you're offering these things in these different contexts.

Tilda Zheng: I really love how you sharply just catch the beauty, and it's so Zen, Jim. The question of who is the giver, who is the receiver, right? And the equanimity, the quality of mind in everybody's heart, that's so beautiful.

To answer your question, I will use the metaphor of making tea. From my training—I got my certification training to be a tea master in the West, in this country. So the main point that my white tea master told me is the customer's delight. Just read the room as you measure the temperature, and consider how much quantity of tea leaves you want to put in the pot. It's to measure and assess how deep people want to go in this topic and conversation, and just to be the water, and the tea leaves tell you what is the sweet spot.

It sounds very abstract, but for me, it's just as simple as that. The similarity across the contexts is really your mindset. Just remember what's your intention here, what you are doing here, and to remember and appreciate the possibility from every person who joins you. Not to label them. "This is a nurse. This is a college student. This is unhoused." We just see the one. Just to remember this, and that people lead us to the direction where they want to go. And the difference is just like the quote at the end, every encounter is the only encounter in a lifetime. Even though I drink tea with my husband every morning, every time is good.

Are you making tea, Vanessa? I see the smoke on your screen.

Vanessa: I'm engaged in my own nightly act of generosity for my family, making dinner. My apologies for my multitasking, but I have no choice.

Tilda Zheng: No, no, that's so beautiful. That's so alive. I'm just curious. Yeah, it's a beautiful Sunday.

Vanessa: You know, Tilda, I'd like to just share one more thing that's coming up for me or inspiring me. I think listening to you, it's really tapping into something that I'm becoming aware of in myself just from listening to you—how much I have this need or this desire to be able to give something. And I wonder if that's coming up for others as well. It's not a simple thing to offer a cup of tea, and it's something that you've studied and it's such a deep part of your practice. It has such deep roots in you, and it's so simple. And it's just making me feel how much I would love to be able to do that, to do what you do or to do something similar. I love that you named all those other things. It doesn't have to be tea, you know. It can be poetry, it can be drawing, it can be painting, it can be all sorts of things. I feel like for me at least, you've tapped into something, whether it's a desire or a need or a response to the world, of just a simple offering of something, and it feels so beautiful what you do. So, thank you for that inspiration. Really. And I'm just seeing in the chat how other people are inspired, too.

Tilda Zheng: Oh, I have not checked on the chat. Oh, wow. That's a lovely message from Sue. Thank you. Thank you for all of your encouragement, friends. And thank you, Vanessa. That's very touching. And I would say only because you have that in your heart, then you are able to see that. And you are doing that on a beautiful Sunday evening to prepare a beautiful dinner for your family with your whole heart. You are so right that everybody has this desire to give something, because being generous is not a virtue that we have to cultivate, but it really can bring satisfaction and safety for us. I saw that in the food bank where people have a shortage in their lives, and I see that in every tea session and connection, people just want to give each other something.

Sometimes for initial gatherings, people will come from different departments or different places, they don't know each other. It takes time, I found, to build this rapport. So I will ask them to give something to each other. So the first prompt of this tea ceremony for the stranger gathering will be: share something about you that your colleague or even your family doesn't know yet. Just share a little bit of a secret about you, right? And that's so cute. Some people will say, "Oh, actually I'm an eater. I'm really a good eater." And some people will say, "You know, today is the 15th anniversary with my wife." And some will come up with some tears that "my husband passed away two years ago." But just with these simple sentences of giving and sharing, you can see the atmosphere has totally changed in the room, and then people will feel more safety and more able to be themselves, to close their eyes to do a little bit of breath meditation. Giving is the key to happiness. Thank you, Vanessa, for reminding us of that.

Jim: Maybe we'll just give it another minute and see if folks have any other questions and if not we'll start winding down the session. Any other thoughts? Now's the time to share.

Leslie: Hello. And I apologize for being late. But even if I didn't hear a word that you had said, and I just watched you and I saw the joy and the enthusiasm, all of those things that even just your body and your face showed, it would have in and of itself been enough. I thank you for the work that you do and also having the courage to come over here 9 years ago because they didn't have chaplaincy programs where you're from, and wanting to do for others. Thank you for coming and sharing yourself with us today. I feel so much joy.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you so much, Leslie. Even though you said you were late, I didn't notice that. I only noticed your smile all the time on the screen. That's so beautiful. I would say this joy... I wasn't born with this joy. I came from a very strict traditional family in China. So all the training from my childhood was not to be proud of myself. It was to remember I'm not enough all the time. That I can be better. This is the traditional teaching from my childhood and from my blood. So it took me really years to practice how to spoil myself and how to trust what my heart tells me, despite how other people respond to that.

When I just left China, everybody thought I was crazy because I had a very promising future in other people's eyes in China. Just a year ago when I resigned my position as a full-time faculty in university, people thought, "What's wrong with you?" But I have never lived so joyfully and happily as now. So I encourage you just sometimes spoil yourself, be stubborn, breathe, just be free.

And you're so right, Leslie. Whatever you bring to people, people will pick it up. Your stress, your self-consciousness, your fear, everything people will pick up from you. So the main point of all practice is really to build the connection with yourself first, and then you can offer better to other people. Thank you. I really enjoyed the conversation today. And thank you so much, Vanessa and Jim, for making this happen.

Jim: And thank you so much, Tilda. It's been incredible. I think you've seen how moved and inspired you've left this group of people. Just wonderful. Just really wonderful. I'm just going to pop the link in the chat if anyone's moved to support this ongoing program to offer more of these chaplaincy speaker series talks. We're meeting next month for another installment. It's on the website. So, please go ahead and look. Thank you so much everyone for being here. And thank you again, Tilda.

Tilda Zheng: Thank you all for being part of the story. Thank you so much for the connection today. Thank you and take care.