Making good coffee as a form of meditation

Brian

Making good coffee as a form of meditation

Joshua

I am currently that young adult you've described, and my love of coffee is legendary. If the coffee you've described is incredible as I hope, you may have just opened a new, fulfilling chapter of my life. What do you call yourself, a cafephile?

Brian

Heh, a "Cafephile" is an apt word for it

Jeffrey

Love the coffee! I use nice beans from the market, coffee grinder, and a regular drip coffee maker.

Simonthepilgrim

It took me a while but, at last, I have come to understand what George Herbert means: there is no action that cannot be meditative:

Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.

Sitting on a cushion with a wandering mind is less 'meditative' than making a drink with full attention. We can learn so much from chanoyu (the Japanese tea ceremony).

Floating_Abu

Sitting on a cushion with a wandering mind is less 'meditative' than making a drink with full attention.

Dear Simon

It may be an easier thought to have - particularly for those who would like to imagine that sitting, chewing gum and sweeping leaves is just as "Zen" or "meditative" - but were it all that easy, all the Ancestors and recorded Masters wouldn't have had to work so hard would they? Which they did for the most part.

The leaves are peaceful when not shaken, but when so, what then? I would not underestimate formal sitting anymore than I would encourage non-sitting to not be part of sitting. But to deny one over the other is too much IMO.

Hope all is well over there, and thanks for your presence here, and for allowing my contribution.

Abu

Jeffrey

Actually I always do walking meditation when the coffee is brewing up till that point when the last water is coming over and there are the gurgling sounds very strong.

Its kind of like Plum Village's (Thich Nhat Hanh) practice of being mindful when they hear bells such as phone rings.

kanthi helapita samarasinghe

since we always forgetful at least at the time of coffee break we can use each step of a cup of coffee making can be put into meditative practice

in all steps try to be mindful that internal sense + external sense + mind gives feeling

touching the kettle (coffee machine)
waking to the taps for water
putting water into it
switching on
taking the cups
touching the spoon
touching the coffee bottle
putting coffee into cups

putting water into cups
putting sugar into cups

if the mind is with all these steps (more steps in between and six sense organs) the mind will be concentrated and if one has the knowledge of Buddha's Teaching then there is a great possibility a Right View occurs

Brian

Thanks for the comments, everyone

Simonthepilgrim

@Floating Abu,

I would never deny the value of seated meditation - as a prelude to each of our actions as meditation. I agree that we must sit until our buttocks are callused.

Floating_Abu

Thanks, Simon and for the laugh.

Abu

SattvaPaul

The Bodhi tree that the small Buddha in my room is sitting beneath is a coffee plant. Apparently at some point it should produce enough beans to make a pot of coffee. It will be great to make it from scratch, as a meditation. Though I don't have any of the fancy equipment that @Brian has :rolleyes:

:coffee:

ufred7

I can't believe you wrote about this. I have just begun doing this as part of my practice in the past few months. I thought I was the only one.

Lee Kane

Coffee as meditation... what a creative spin. Brought a smile (and since I think of the smile and the laugh as meditation, thank you!) Mindfulness in any activity is meditation. I practice tea... smile. To me, the ultimate meditation is laughter. My favorite "position" if that's what it's called, is standing meditation. I wrote about my views on a few other sites. Finding the child within is another thought in guiding the mindful mediator. One of our members posted about this as well. I'm glad I found your wonderful blog. Namaste.

bodhimaṇḍa

so is the coffee that tick, or the taste that tick, or the tongue that tick or the aroma that tick,. Or your friends know zen...

Citta

Silly joke removed by joker.

DairyLama

I had a coffee recently in Costa, it made me feel unwell.

Victorious

So far as meditation practices go. I prefer more simple ones. I find the complexity of the task makes the noticing more difficult.

/Victor.

DharmaCloud

This past weekend I roasted coffee beans I brought back from Ethiopia in the backyard. It was a very mindful event with my son. The constant stirring as we watched the beans go from green...

to brown...

to COFFEE!!!

Citta

I can almost smell it...

lobster

@Citta said:
I can almost smell it...

I almost brewed it . . .

Wonderful . . .

Through no virtue of my own I have some expresso coffee that was used in making Brasil and Coffee cake . . . I think I may have to mindfully caffeinate myself . . .
:wave: .

zombiegirl

Cool that someone revived this thread. I actually was just given a goose-neck kettle as a gift for this very purpose to up my pour over game. It really is the best way to prepare coffee. But for anyone thinking about trying it... be warned... you'll forever be disappointed with anything that comes from a coffee pot.