” Silent Waiting after Tea ” With kind permission from The Scholar of Pure Spring

A literary fellow was drunk one day. He had long been in the habit of writing a couplet each day of his life, and thus in this manner, he took his brush-pen to write a new couplet on his wall paper:

“Crazy shouting after drunk , Hysteria!”

He thought over and over, but he could not write the second line to form the couplet.

One day, soon after, a friend of his came to visit him. He explained to his friend that he had no idea of how to complete the other half of the couplet despite having pondered over it for more than a few days.

He entertained his friend with a particularly rare Puer tea, and after a while of sipping, his friend in a euphoric feeling of relaxation and joyfulness, suddenly exclaimed:

“I have the second line. It’s this :

Silent waiting after tea, Inspiration!”
And so this marvelous tea couplet came to be:
“ Crazy shouting after drunk , Hysteria!
Silent waiting after tea, Inspiration!”
Now the couplet is widely known and elucidates the metaphor of the of Zen-Teaism in a simple comparison; real inspiration comes from drinking tea which makes people wise, intelligent and sagacious.
Scholar of Pure Spring
白泉居士

Leave a comment