From the "Tao follow the natural rule" philosophical idea, Lao Zi put forward: "Heaven and Earth are perpetual. The reason why they could be perpetual is because they are not self arisen and not dedicated to live". Zhuang Zi developed Lao Zi's idea and put forward "Ignore the listening and the visibility, hold the spirit and keep the tranquility. It would form itself, be peaceful and clear, do not need other things but would be perpetual."
Taoism Health classic Master Dan Yang's Quotations, summarized Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's health theory into a "12 words" knack. That is, "be quiet with things, relaxed and not involved in". He also emphasized, "keeping peace is the first principle to keep good health". Hence “quiet and inaction” became the fundamental Taoist health theory.
Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi's health theory "quiet and inaction" has two aspects: clear heart to experience the Tao and leads to tranquility, follow the natural rules and return to the innocence.
Experience Taoism with a Peaceful Heart, Tranquility Leads to the Future
The so-called "clear heart" means" less private desires, enjoy what you have." Having a simple appearance and a pure heart will reduce selfishness and exclude private desires. In on short, the "clear heart" is an "indisputable" heart. He also believed that the competitive heart is close to Tao. He said, "the benevolence is like water, embrace everything and never complain about being in a position that benefits other things but lower itself, which makes it close to Tao". If people have the clear heart, they are able to delay the aging process."
In order to help people achieve the "clear heart", Zhuang Zi proposed "sitting to forget". He explained that "Dropping your body, dismiss the intelligence, to know from forgetting everything. This is sitting to forget." "Sitting to forget" requires not only forget the social thing but also forget yourself, to embrace the nature completely, and then combine yourself with it.
"Tranquility leads to far" is from Zhuge Liang's Commandment Book for my sons, "As gentlemen, you should be peaceful to cultivate the virtues. Only when you are peaceful and honest could you actually reach the condition of clear-mindedness and far-reaching sight." It means virtuous people limit their behaviors by making the inner world quiet first, then to strengthen their own self-cultivation. If not, they will not be able to get a clear understanding of their ambitions and cannot achieve a lofty level.
The pursuit of lofty levels via the Tea Ceremony does not mean to establish a vision for their own goals, but to self-design a perfect character or an indifferent way to life.
Everyone has to work but with different views. Some people regard it as a job; some see it as a career; some people see it as an art and some others take it as having merits and virtues. The people who take work as a job, usually have to face the burden from the heart in order to feed their families. He must be tired of the bitter feelings of days and wearing on years of hardship. If as a career, they must strive to achieve, must be in a very heavy psychological pressure to live. If as art, his work has been in the spirit of enjoyment, so, in this way, he can enjoy life. This person appears to "just work, no gain", but finally would have double success. If as a virtue, he will always be in a sense of immense pleasure and happy life. The Tea Health theory believes that the work as art or for merits and virtues, to establish aliving in self-cultivation, self-cultivation in the life" concept, take a normal attitude towards work, which is “tranquility leads to far" and "lofty level".
Taoism follows Nature, Going back to Purity which Leads to Genuineness
Lao Zi said, "People follow the rules of nature; nature follows the climate; the climate follows Tao; and Tao follows the natural law." Taoism believes that life in nature must consciously abide by the laws of nature. Humanity follows nature so that humans can be kept by nature; the earth follows the climate so that it could be cover by the sky; climate changes according to the Tao so that it could be perpetual, and Tao follows the natural law which is the universal truth, this indicates the way people make process on knowing nature and reaching the most essential attributes. Returning to innocence is to get rid of its decorating exterior and get real truth. Here it refers to the truth of Tao.
In the Tea Ceremony, Tao follows nature. Returning to innocence contains the four dimensions of materiality, behavior, spirituality and health.
At the material level, the Chinese Tea Ceremony thinks tea is a "nice tree from the south", and is given by nature the "precious wood and smart bud". In tea manufacture, only if you follow the laws of nature can you produce healthy and good tea no matter on tea growing, tea picking or tea making. This view has been developed as a modem theory and practice of "organic tea".
On the behavioral level, the Chinese Tea Ceremony in the tea things and activities all must take natural beauty and simplicity as principle, moving as water and clouds, stay as the mountain or rock, smile like flower open and speak like spring. Every single movement should be nature. "The supreme beautiful is natural" is the consensus of the consensus of the modern tea industry.
At the spiritual level, Tao follows the rules of nature and is performed as "the heart is not limited by material", which is pursuit of the complete relief of heart. The pursuit of the total liberation of the mind, quiet mood, relaxation, loneliness and inaction, makes their heart fly with the tea aroma, as if combined with the universe, raised to the "self-forget" state. Just as Zhuang Zi said, "Have the spirit of heaven and earth, relying on the six-air, exploring endless everywhere, are you still afraid of waiting? Hence, the supreme person sees nothing about themselves; sages have no goals, and saints have no fame." The world by Zhuang Zi is long days, an unlimited and free heaven and earth.
The Chinese Tea Ceremony advocates "Tao follows the rules of nature" with a special emphasis on doing things not contrary to the laws of nature. "Inaction" is not doing nothing, but acting not against the nature. There is a bigger gap between human being and nature in modern society, suffering the retaliation from the nature, such as climate anomalies, land desertification, severe environmental pollution, the damaged ozone layer and a large number of species threatend by extinction.
Since the increasing illness of the "civilized" modem society have been more and more exposed, people are tortured by the sub-health standards and started a worldwide rethinking. The more people think, the more people realized the value of the concept "Tao follows the rules of nature" and increasingly looking forward to a "Return to Innocence."
