TEA AND ZEN - THREADS

THE MORNING POEM - Keeping Watch

In the morningWhen I began to wake,It happened again—That feelingThat you, Beloved,Had stood over me all nightKeeping watch,That feelingThat as soon as I began to stirYou put Your lips on my foreheadAnd lit a Holy LampInside my heartHafiz. Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

THE MORNING POEM

Little by little,You will turn into stars.Even then, my dear,You will only beA crawling infant,Still skinning your knees on God.Little by little,You will turn intoThe whole sweet, amorous UniverseIn heatOn a wild spring night,And become so freeIn a wonderful, secretAnd pour LoveThat flowsFrom a conscious,One-pointedInfinite need for Light.Even then, my dear,The Beloved will have fulfilledJust a fraction,Just a fraction!Of a promiseHe wrote upon your heart.When your soul beginsTo Ever bloom and laughAnd spin in Eternal Ecstasy -O little by little,You will turn into God.teaandzen.org Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

The Morning Poem

This being human is a guest house.Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comesAs an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your houseempty of its furniture,still treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you outfor some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,because each has been sentas a guide from beyond. Rumi Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

MEDITATION

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In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

THE MORNING POEM

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…In life after life, in age after age, forever.My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,In life after life, in age after age, forever.Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,Its ancient tale of being apart or together.As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:You become an image of what is remembered forever.You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.At the heart of time, love of one for another.We have played alongside millions of lovers, shared in the sameShy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in youThe love of all man’s days both past and forever:Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –And the songs of every poet past and forever. Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

The Eternal Presence of Love

Love itself does not hurt. It is the illusion of its absence that brings pain. Love is always here, always flowing, seen or unseen. The paradox is that we grieve for what has never left.Nigel Lott teaandzen.org Meditation Sans Frontieres is a 501(c)(3) non profit charitable organization; contributions are tax-deductible as permitted by law. EIN is 81-3411835 Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

THE MORNING POEM

Once a man came to me and spoke for hours about 'His great visions of God,' he felt he was having.He asked me for confirmation, saying 'Are these wondrous dreams true?'I replied, 'How many goats do you have?'He looked surprised and said, 'I am speaking of sublime visions and you ask about goats?'And I spoke again, saying, 'Yes brother -- how many do you have?''Well, I have sixty two.''And how many wives?'Again he looked surprised, then said, 'Four.''How many rose bushes in your garden? How many children? Are your parents still alive? Do you feed the birds in winter?'And to all he answered.Then I said, 'You asked me if I thought your visions were true. I would say that they were if they made you become more human, more kind to every creature and plant that you knew.'"-- Hafiz Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

THE MORNING POEM

WaitingThe song I came to singremains unsung to this day.I have spent my days in stringingand in unstringing my instrument.The time has not come true,the words have not been rightly set;only there is the agonyof wishing in my heart…..I have not seen his face,nor have I listened to his voice;only I have heard his gentle footstepsfrom the road before my house…..But the lamp has not been litand I cannot ask him into my house;I live in the hope of meeting with him;but this meeting is not yet.teaandzen.org Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

HOMECOMING

There is a sacred homecoming that unfolds when you return to yourself…..not one marked by grand gestures or external validation, but a quiet and profound awakening. It is the slow shedding of all that is not yours to carry…..the unraveling of false identities, the soft release of inherited burdens, the deep exhale after holding your breath for lifetimes.To come home to yourself is to remember that you were never truly lost. Even in the seasons of forgetting, even when you wandered far from your own soul’s voice, you remained……waiting, watching, holding sacred space for your own return. It is a divine invitation to step gently across the threshold of your own heart, to find within it a sanctuary untouched by time, always welcoming, always whole.Coming home means surrendering to the beauty of becoming, making peace with the unfinished, the imperfect, the unfolding mystery of who you are. It is a tender embrace of both your light and your shadow, a recognition that every part of you belongs. You need not prove, strive, or shape-shift to be worthy—you always were. Worthy of love. Worthy of joy.This path is not without its trials. It winds through dense forests of old conditioning, past echoes of voices that once defined you. But as you move through the illusion, (and anything that is not love, will always be an illusion appearing real) for love is the only truth. As you untangle yourself from all that is not true, clarity emerges. The noise fades. And in the sacred stillness, your own voice rises like a prayer.Home is not a place, nor a destination…..it is a remembering. A return to the eternal knowing that you belong to yourself. That you are enough. That you have always been whole.Nigel Lott teaandzen.org Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE

TOUCH A HEART, BLESS A SOUL

Music ‘In Touch’ Joesph Beg Get full access to Tea and Zen - Threads at teaandzen.substack.com/subscribe
In the quiet between heartbeats a whisper calls you home, you are not broken you are becoming. These threads of silence and sound are letters from the threshold, offerings from the edge of stillness. Nigel  TEA AND ZEN - MAIN LIBRARY                                                                                                                                                                  DONATE