Sorry to say I drank coffee this afternoon! Now my brain can hardly gather itself together on the page. I will be sticking to will(ingness) power from now on. Here are a couple of coffee related thought threads.
A monk told me recently about a chap who came to him for emergency counseling a few days into a retreat at one of our monasteries. He couldn’t keep up with the schedule, he felt exhausted all the time, he had a headache to beat the band and was trembling all over! His problem? Coffee withdrawal. He’d gone from twenty cups a day, to none! Gosh, how they can mount up, ay?
The origins of coffee. The way it was told me, a goat herd in Ethiopia noticed his goats were dancing and then chewed on the red berries they had been eating, and felt pretty good. Fairly soon the word got out and a world wide phenomena was born. There are a number of different stories however I like this one the best so I’m sticking with it.
Oh, I know what it’s like to be attached to our dark friend. I love the taste and the effect it has on my mind: sharpened, focused, and a little bit euphoric. The problem is that I can’t go without! I lay down at night with anticipation for my morning cup. Now that spring is here, I think it’s time time for a weaning. Time to let it go. Maybe a run will wake me up instead.
Once, when moving a (another!) shed years ago I completely ran out of energy over a weekend and eventually couldn’t even lift the shovel to lay the last concrete for the foundation blocks.
Later I discovered that someone had bought decaffinated coffee by mistake. Good grief!
I always remember a Larsen ‘Far Side’ cartoon with a guy holding a smoking gun and two neighbours dead on the lounge floor. His wife is saying angrily to him “OK! That’s it! From now on only decaffinated for you …”
I used to drink a LOT OF COFFEE. I can remember when I was a monk, there were days when it literally resurrected me. Later in life, at work I would drink perhaps eight to ten cups a day. I honestly don’t know how much I drank, but it was a lot.
Then I ran into a health crisis which instantly put things in perspective. It was suggested that I stop consuming caffine – which I promptly did. Now I’m routinely groggy in the morning, but my health issues have stabilized and I recently was introduced to the wonders of ginseng tea – wonderful stuff!
OK. I admit it. I am a contrarian — as well as a coffeeholic. But coffee has a good reputation these days. It’s loaded with antioxidants! And while it raises your blood pressure — and, certainly, this can be bad for some people — it also can quickly get you past the early-morning grumbles.
Hah! Looks like coffee is in a few peoples minds. We drank quite a bit of good coffee while I was a novice in the 1980’s as there was a congregation member in the coffee roasting business. We would get the not-quite-perfect batches. Tasted good to me though.
Somewhere in there I became very sensitive to coffee, the caffine in it. So for the benefit of both self and other I quit. However tea (black tea) is what I go towards for a lift, especially around ‘tea time’, that’s 4.00 pm.
As I understand it tea has always been associated with Buddhism. Probably used to help keep awake during long hours of meditation. I don’t find it helps that much so I leave it alone during retreats.
When I was doing a stint as the Chief Cook at our monastery in England I underestimated the amount of tea we had in stock. We had to have tea rationing during the winter sesshin! The monks were generally kind about it. But when we ran out of butter during the holiday baking season…that was no fun!