We are living through hell, or are we? Take another sip. I share my thoughts on how tea can help us live through challenging parts of our lives. Our website: www.farmer-leaf.com/
William my heart goes out to you & your family. As I sit at my tea table this afternoon I’ve paused from some paper work and listened to your words with great interest. Taking a moment to reflect and consider your thoughts. I feel I don’t want to escape from reality and try hard in my life to not link happiness with my suffering. I think I need suffering to allow me to experience pleasure; both are reality. However, happiness to me is a product of being of service. I think this is our role in life, as hard as it can be, being of service to others is the key to me finding happiness. Thank you for your words, your tea and this reflection.
Thank you for sharing, William. Insightful as always. I'll say a prayer for your father-in-law that he may be as comfortable as possible in these final days.
Thanks for the video! I'm a war enthusiast too. This is history in the making. I've learned so much over the last few months because of it. My dad passed in 2017 from pancreatic cancer. I was there with him til his last breath. It was a great experience for me; staring at my own mortality. I'm at peace with it now. If I leave this world as he did, I will have done good. Blessings The '21 Gulan is good BTW. Very interesting. Elusive sweetness
I'm a Ukrainian; I lost my father to lung cancer some years ago; from time to time, I suffer from depression, and I'm a tea shop owner:) And after watching this video, I want to share my own experience. What helps me the most at times like this is the combination of the following: a: being useful. This is the most important thing. Helping others the best I can - by tending to my father, raising money for Ukrainians in need, volunteering, etc. b: Routine. Doing something on the schedule, whether I feel like doing it or not. Keep me occupied, so I don't have much time to sit and think and pity myself. c: rewarding myself at the end of the day by drinking good tea, brewing it slowly, gong fu way. But it's only the combination of the three, the balanced combination of the things I mentioned above, that works for me. Any of the three on its own doesn't really work.
Thank you for sharing your ways of coping. I'm confident time will heal your wounds, just like it did for everybody in the past millennia. In the meanwhile, stay strong and live until the next day.
I'm also a Ukrainian, from the Eastern part of the country, living some 50 kilometers away from the frontline. I'm also a student and I have to work at the same time to support my sister and mother who has lost her job due to the war. The news from the frontline really is mixed, many people I know got injured, some even killed, and the situtation only seems to be getting worse. However, I do manage to maintain some kind of stability of the mind, and tea is one of those things that really help these days. Whatever the situation is, even if it's an air raid siren going on, or the actual shelling, you can always find a peaceful place for your tea ceremony. The flavor, the color, the pattern of the tea cup and other things just seem familiar and close enough to make you feel peaceful and...just "stable". My gratitude to the owner of the channel and the author of the comment, these talks about everything from the prospect of tea making really make you feel like a part of some greater community, members of which manage to find peace and harmony in things as simple at the first glance as tea leaves and water.
I'm sorry for your father in law William. The war has also taken a toll on my heart as well. And in many ways I feel guilty for living in safety while my friend struggles to survive in Kiev. Sometimes it's hard to drink my tea because I wind up thinking about people killing each other. But I drink anyway because maybe this is how the tea wants me to cope with my worry and stress. It's interesting, because I was a very nonviolent, non angry person. And nowadays I just cannot get violence out of my head and in a lot of ways I wish violence on others for hurting my friend's home. He is stuck there, unable and unwilling to leave. He has a rifle but not enough ammo. Many of his friends (who are civilians) have been killed in Russian airstrikes on residential areas. As much as I try to be pacifist, sometimes it just seems impossible. Thanks again for all that you do, William.
You shouldn't feel guilty for things that are outside your control. I hope your friend made it through the siege of Kiev, this battle will surely make his grandchildren proud to be Ukrainian.
I am sorry to hear about your father in law. We have lost several family members to cancer and you are correct. The reality of their passing is gruesome. I do not wish this suffering on anybody. And the caregiver task is one I also don’t wish on anybody. Thank you for sharing your story and your current mind set with us. All I can say is this will not forever be the reality you live with. This will pass. Take courage - take heart. God bless you.
Very sorry to hear about your father, William. It's so good to hear from you considering everything you have going on. Looking forward to the white/black tea landing on the store!
William Wishing you and your whole family strong of heart day's and greetings to your father in law letting him know that the heart of many is with him and the whole family. Don't get to much distracted by the war in ukraine because all these things must happen and think this over, why is there so much fuzz about this war? why not helping other peoples in other wars and disasters all over the world? so don't worrie about it to much. You have others things to keep your mindset on aspecially your father in law and your family, the tea trees are stong and God knows your troubles and sorrows. So stay strong in these coming day's and to be honest with you, the best way to relax is the way that you are doing it by talking to all of us while working with the wok and the tea leafes in the middle of the night and the crickets tjirping in the back ground STAY STRONG.
Indeed, a way to cope is to think of all the suffering we don't see. If the war in Ukraine goes on for years, it won't be in the news every day. Should we mourn over the holocaust or the mongol invasions on a daily basis? Should we feel guilty of worrying about Ukraine while we barely cared about Syria, Congo or Yemen? We also become numb to suffering, there is just so much empathy we can give. When the covid crisis started, I remember people saying: it will be terrible, there could be hundreds of deaths.
We've been discussing a lot, and I know how much this is all affecting you. And I understand it does. I send you a lot of positive vibes to you, your wife, your father-in-law, and all your family.
This video resonated with me deeply. You are a deeply caring and empathetic person that I can relate to on many levels. I would like to make one argument in your thought process though. Your time at the wok or time at the tea table shouldn't be viewed as an escape from reality. What brings us into the focus of the moment is our true reality. It does not mean that people are not dieing or that wars are not being fought. It just means that in that moment in time that is not our own reality. To take the buddhist view on it, the past nor the future exists. Those are just delusions. The only thing that exists is this very moment in time. All thoughts not of this very moment in time that we experience are delusions. While it may be good to contemplate many things those are the very things that can lead to much suffering. We need to remember to live in the present moment. That is something I am working hard to do myself. When my mind wanders, as it does to often, I am left paralyzed with grief and sadness for many of the same concerns and reasons you stated. Thinking to much about the suffering and foolishness of others breaks my heart and leaves me struggling to find reason to move forward. Striking a balance between living in the moment while allowing ourselves to be conscious of the suffering of others is important. I hope you find your middle path as I struggle to find mine. 🙏
Very sorry to hear about your father in law, my prayers will go with your family. I thought you would like to know that before I saw your video today I was already brewing some tea from your farm. I was thinking how happy I was to be enjoying this tea after a hard tough day of work. I wanted to let you how what you do brings enjoyment and pleasure to so many. Uplifting us from troubles. 🙏🏼
Thank you very much. I'm always happy to look at the leaves and think they will be spread all around the world in a couple of months. I hope you had a good tea session that day.
Big part of stoism is to see the world as neutral as possible to be able to judge as accordingly as possible. Otherwise you cant improve yourself as well. I would see myself as one of a more radical stoic, facing reality doesnt matter how hard it may be. But to stay able to see things as neutral as possible you need a clear mind, in other words, you should have nothing going around in your head too much. In my experience thst require some breaks, maybe while drinking tea. In your case i would bring up the phrase "momento mori". Remember the mortality. Its importaint to love and feel somewhat sad when a parent is sick, but also finding the times to accept that its natural helps alot to find times to come down (like while drinking tea). That Acceptance of death is what everyone should need to train a little more in these modern days.
Best wishes to you and yours, I love your videos, and your tea is cherished in my house, not only because of the quality, but because of the tie we have however loosely perhaps via youtube, that you have created by bringing us into and sharing your life. When getting your tea out of the cupboard, I often contemplate what we might discuss In person. All the best,
My deepest sympathies. I can only offer some of my own experience: Pottery and crafting ceramics has been accompanying me through some hard times. But as you say these things cannot offer any "real" consolation. Perhaps that's what ultimately makes them "real". I would think of tea (and more broadly routine) as a way of centering oneself. Even in an illusory reality (such as in the matrix), there is ultimately a present experience and that which is not the present. So I would not call tea or art escapism but rather "putting one's experience into a broader context". The viewer of a movie is presented with an option that the protagonist of matrix probably never had: having knowledge about the illusion whilst being part of the preceived reality. In a way this is what eastern philosophy sometimes does: describing that which is, by only characterizing that which isn't. This is a much more elegant and philosophically sound way of describing reality and also what makes art such a great achievement
Same here.Had times when I thought my head would explode,walls collapse and the whole world IMPLODE...sat down with a lump of clay and got lost and found in the process.I am still here.Making teabowls...
Thank you for bringing this argument. I think the real consolation comes from time passing and our inner will working on us. We can only cope with the suffering by staying busy until, one day, the suffering vanishes. It reminds me of this scene in Fight Club: czcams.com/video/zvtUrjfnSnA/video.html
Bad stuff is definitely better at violently grabbing your attention and reminding you it exists as well. But i don't agree with this notion that this makes it any more real than daily life, your social relationships and interactions or the comforts of a good meal or cup of tea! Focusing on tea is not escaping reality as much as choosing a specific piece of reality you focus on. And so is watching the news, for that matter. One could easily argue that for you, the leaves in your wok and your family are more relevant and "real" than the war in ukraine you don't experience first-hand.
Thank you for raising this point. Maybe having to focus on the serious issues is a cultural conditioning. In good society, you can't put the horrors of war and the pleasures of a tea session on the same level, and yet, that's what we do in our mind. This is especially illustrated as we scroll social media. Within one minute, you can see a tank getting blasted by a missile, then a cute cat, beautiful cups of teas, a city destroyed by bombardments, an exotic landscape, a funny face...
@@farmerleaf61 I agree that it is a lot about the relative novelty of film and photography, television and the internet. Before those, if we saw destruction and war, we would have been in a dangerous situation and there would have been a need for us to act. It would have been obvious that it is relevant and takes priority. The new technologies let us experience situations we are not in and can not influence. I think that is a relatively new situation for our brains, minds and moral systems we still need to learn to deal with.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:2-3
![2015 W2T Pretty Girls Ripe Pu'erh [Episode 231]](/img/n.gif)
William my heart goes out to you & your family. As I sit at my tea table this afternoon I’ve paused from some paper work and listened to your words with great interest. Taking a moment to reflect and consider your thoughts. I feel I don’t want to escape from reality and try hard in my life to not link happiness with my suffering. I think I need suffering to allow me to experience pleasure; both are reality. However, happiness to me is a product of being of service. I think this is our role in life, as hard as it can be, being of service to others is the key to me finding happiness. Thank you for your words, your tea and this reflection.
Thanks for your dedication, I'm sure people around you can feel the benefits of your dedication. The way you deal with suffering is good for society.
Thank you for a wonderful video. Take care.
The leaf nurtures our reality. Releasing and embracing... Mahalo William.
Thank you for sharing, William. Insightful as always. I'll say a prayer for your father-in-law that he may be as comfortable as possible in these final days.
Agreed, my tea brother. I'm praying for your father in law, family and you.
This video has really helped my outlook during a low mental state. Can’t wait to get back to my gaiwan after some time away from home, thanks!
I am so sorry for what your father-in-law is going through.
Take another sip! Excellent video brother! Thank you for your hard work and humility!
A strong dose of realitea. Wishing you the best.
Amazing video William. This is what sharing tea is all about, thank you for making such great tea for us to enjoy!
Thank you!
Thank s for sharing. Tea is great company always.
Thank you for sharing such a thing with us. It must have been hard to say such sad thing out loud... Take care!
Thanks for the video! I'm a war enthusiast too. This is history in the making. I've learned so much over the last few months because of it.
My dad passed in 2017 from pancreatic cancer. I was there with him til his last breath. It was a great experience for me; staring at my own mortality. I'm at peace with it now. If I leave this world as he did, I will have done good. Blessings
The '21 Gulan is good BTW. Very interesting. Elusive sweetness
Thanks for sharing your experience, I'm happy to know you've grown from this experience.
"Pessimists will be right in the end. But optimists will have happier life."
As a pessimist that hit me a bit.
I missed these magic wok videos :)
God bless you and your family
I'm a Ukrainian; I lost my father to lung cancer some years ago; from time to time, I suffer from depression, and I'm a tea shop owner:) And after watching this video, I want to share my own experience. What helps me the most at times like this is the combination of the following:
a: being useful. This is the most important thing. Helping others the best I can - by tending to my father, raising money for Ukrainians in need, volunteering, etc.
b: Routine. Doing something on the schedule, whether I feel like doing it or not. Keep me occupied, so I don't have much time to sit and think and pity myself.
c: rewarding myself at the end of the day by drinking good tea, brewing it slowly, gong fu way.
But it's only the combination of the three, the balanced combination of the things I mentioned above, that works for me. Any of the three on its own doesn't really work.
Thanks for sharing your three advice ! Cheers to you and to William from Estonia
@@Morphomerle 🙏🏻❤
Thank you for sharing your ways of coping. I'm confident time will heal your wounds, just like it did for everybody in the past millennia. In the meanwhile, stay strong and live until the next day.
I'm also a Ukrainian, from the Eastern part of the country, living some 50 kilometers away from the frontline. I'm also a student and I have to work at the same time to support my sister and mother who has lost her job due to the war. The news from the frontline really is mixed, many people I know got injured, some even killed, and the situtation only seems to be getting worse. However, I do manage to maintain some kind of stability of the mind, and tea is one of those things that really help these days. Whatever the situation is, even if it's an air raid siren going on, or the actual shelling, you can always find a peaceful place for your tea ceremony. The flavor, the color, the pattern of the tea cup and other things just seem familiar and close enough to make you feel peaceful and...just "stable". My gratitude to the owner of the channel and the author of the comment, these talks about everything from the prospect of tea making really make you feel like a part of some greater community, members of which manage to find peace and harmony in things as simple at the first glance as tea leaves and water.
@@bohdansatchuk1611 Stay safe! ❤🇺🇦
I'm sorry for your father in law William. The war has also taken a toll on my heart as well. And in many ways I feel guilty for living in safety while my friend struggles to survive in Kiev. Sometimes it's hard to drink my tea because I wind up thinking about people killing each other. But I drink anyway because maybe this is how the tea wants me to cope with my worry and stress.
It's interesting, because I was a very nonviolent, non angry person. And nowadays I just cannot get violence out of my head and in a lot of ways I wish violence on others for hurting my friend's home. He is stuck there, unable and unwilling to leave. He has a rifle but not enough ammo. Many of his friends (who are civilians) have been killed in Russian airstrikes on residential areas.
As much as I try to be pacifist, sometimes it just seems impossible.
Thanks again for all that you do, William.
You shouldn't feel guilty for things that are outside your control. I hope your friend made it through the siege of Kiev, this battle will surely make his grandchildren proud to be Ukrainian.
a very deeply felt video something we all can learn from---thank you for sharing
I’m sorry about your father in law - thank you for sharing
I am sorry to hear about your father in law. We have lost several family members to cancer and you are correct. The reality of their passing is gruesome. I do not wish this suffering on anybody. And the caregiver task is one I also don’t wish on anybody.
Thank you for sharing your story and your current mind set with us.
All I can say is this will not forever be the reality you live with. This will pass. Take courage - take heart. God bless you.
Thank you for your kind words.
Life is hard. Good tea helps. Best wishes to you and your family.
Sorry for your Father in law.. yes, it is a good escape to do tea leaf picking in the field and trying to make a good tea after that.
You are a good man...you are doing something so beautiful as tea...and with all that deep philosophy...keep it up...
Thank you!
found your channel yesterday and I really enjoy the dedication to the craft. keep it up
Thanks for sharing, I always enjoy listening to your thoughts.
Very sorry to hear about your father, William. It's so good to hear from you considering everything you have going on. Looking forward to the white/black tea landing on the store!
Thank you for sharing William, will be praying for your Father-in-law and family. Three black teas came in from you, all great tasting!
William Wishing you and your whole family strong of heart day's and greetings to your father in law letting him know that the heart of many is with him and the whole family. Don't get to much distracted by the war in ukraine because all these things must happen and think this over, why is there so much fuzz about this war? why not helping other peoples in other wars and disasters all over the world? so don't worrie about it to much. You have others things to keep your mindset on aspecially your father in law and your family, the tea trees are stong and God knows your troubles and sorrows. So stay strong in these coming day's and to be honest with you, the best way to relax is the way that you are doing it by talking to all of us while working with the wok and the tea leafes in the middle of the night and the crickets tjirping in the back ground STAY STRONG.
Indeed, a way to cope is to think of all the suffering we don't see. If the war in Ukraine goes on for years, it won't be in the news every day. Should we mourn over the holocaust or the mongol invasions on a daily basis? Should we feel guilty of worrying about Ukraine while we barely cared about Syria, Congo or Yemen?
We also become numb to suffering, there is just so much empathy we can give. When the covid crisis started, I remember people saying: it will be terrible, there could be hundreds of deaths.
We've been discussing a lot, and I know how much this is all affecting you. And I understand it does. I send you a lot of positive vibes to you, your wife, your father-in-law, and all your family.
Cheers
This video resonated with me deeply. You are a deeply caring and empathetic person that I can relate to on many levels. I would like to make one argument in your thought process though. Your time at the wok or time at the tea table shouldn't be viewed as an escape from reality. What brings us into the focus of the moment is our true reality. It does not mean that people are not dieing or that wars are not being fought. It just means that in that moment in time that is not our own reality. To take the buddhist view on it, the past nor the future exists. Those are just delusions. The only thing that exists is this very moment in time. All thoughts not of this very moment in time that we experience are delusions. While it may be good to contemplate many things those are the very things that can lead to much suffering. We need to remember to live in the present moment. That is something I am working hard to do myself. When my mind wanders, as it does to often, I am left paralyzed with grief and sadness for many of the same concerns and reasons you stated. Thinking to much about the suffering and foolishness of others breaks my heart and leaves me struggling to find reason to move forward. Striking a balance between living in the moment while allowing ourselves to be conscious of the suffering of others is important. I hope you find your middle path as I struggle to find mine. 🙏
Thank you very much for your words!
Love to you, your father-in-law, and to your family.
Very sorry to hear about your father in law, my prayers will go with your family. I thought you would like to know that before I saw your video today I was already brewing some tea from your farm. I was thinking how happy I was to be enjoying this tea after a hard tough day of work. I wanted to let you how what you do brings enjoyment and pleasure to so many. Uplifting us from troubles. 🙏🏼
Thank you very much. I'm always happy to look at the leaves and think they will be spread all around the world in a couple of months. I hope you had a good tea session that day.
Thank you 🙏
Praying for your family friend.
Thanks so much
Big part of stoism is to see the world as neutral as possible to be able to judge as accordingly as possible. Otherwise you cant improve yourself as well. I would see myself as one of a more radical stoic, facing reality doesnt matter how hard it may be. But to stay able to see things as neutral as possible you need a clear mind, in other words, you should have nothing going around in your head too much. In my experience thst require some breaks, maybe while drinking tea. In your case i would bring up the phrase "momento mori". Remember the mortality. Its importaint to love and feel somewhat sad when a parent is sick, but also finding the times to accept that its natural helps alot to find times to come down (like while drinking tea). That Acceptance of death is what everyone should need to train a little more in these modern days.
Thank you for your stoic words.
Thank You.
Best wishes to you and yours, I love your videos, and your tea is cherished in my house, not only because of the quality, but because of the tie we have however loosely perhaps via youtube, that you have created by bringing us into and sharing your life. When getting your tea out of the cupboard, I often contemplate what we might discuss In person. All the best,
I hope we have the opportunity to meet someday. Enjoy the tea!
My heart goes out to you. My husband passed from lung cancer.
Thank you for your support, condolences for your husband.
My deepest sympathies. I can only offer some of my own experience: Pottery and crafting ceramics has been accompanying me through some hard times. But as you say these things cannot offer any "real" consolation. Perhaps that's what ultimately makes them "real". I would think of tea (and more broadly routine) as a way of centering oneself. Even in an illusory reality (such as in the matrix), there is ultimately a present experience and that which is not the present. So I would not call tea or art escapism but rather "putting one's experience into a broader context". The viewer of a movie is presented with an option that the protagonist of matrix probably never had: having knowledge about the illusion whilst being part of the preceived reality. In a way this is what eastern philosophy sometimes does: describing that which is, by only characterizing that which isn't. This is a much more elegant and philosophically sound way of describing reality and also what makes art such a great achievement
Same here.Had times when I thought my head would explode,walls collapse and the whole world IMPLODE...sat down with a lump of clay and got lost and found in the process.I am still here.Making teabowls...
Thank you for bringing this argument. I think the real consolation comes from time passing and our inner will working on us. We can only cope with the suffering by staying busy until, one day, the suffering vanishes. It reminds me of this scene in Fight Club: czcams.com/video/zvtUrjfnSnA/video.html
Bad stuff is definitely better at violently grabbing your attention and reminding you it exists as well.
But i don't agree with this notion that this makes it any more real than daily life, your social relationships and interactions or the comforts of a good meal or cup of tea!
Focusing on tea is not escaping reality as much as choosing a specific piece of reality you focus on. And so is watching the news, for that matter.
One could easily argue that for you, the leaves in your wok and your family are more relevant and "real" than the war in ukraine you don't experience first-hand.
Thank you for raising this point.
Maybe having to focus on the serious issues is a cultural conditioning. In good society, you can't put the horrors of war and the pleasures of a tea session on the same level, and yet, that's what we do in our mind. This is especially illustrated as we scroll social media. Within one minute, you can see a tank getting blasted by a missile, then a cute cat, beautiful cups of teas, a city destroyed by bombardments, an exotic landscape, a funny face...
@@farmerleaf61 I agree that it is a lot about the relative novelty of film and photography, television and the internet.
Before those, if we saw destruction and war, we would have been in a dangerous situation and there would have been a need for us to act. It would have been obvious that it is relevant and takes priority.
The new technologies let us experience situations we are not in and can not influence.
I think that is a relatively new situation for our brains, minds and moral systems we still need to learn to deal with.
Religion is a pill too. It’s an escape from reality. Spirituality comes from Unhappiness.
Maybe reality is only a part of spirituality, like a projection of much more abstract concepts.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
1 John 3:2-3