Previous academic presentations include:
What Links Tea Culture and Art in China?
When speaking about culture in China we cannot avoid talking about Chinese art. The tea culture would not be the same if its formation had not been influenced by literati (educated people that were concerned with art). They were reflecting on the world around themselves in a certain way. Supported by the Taoist and Confucian classics and upon Buddhist thinking, they determined both what it meant to offer a cup of gongfu tea as well as the meaning of the painting resulting from traditional Chinese calligraphy: a reflection on the position of man within transformation which (of all things) is uniquely constant and eternal.
Tea and Meditation or Meditation with Tea?
There is a Chinese saying: Meditation and tea have the same taste – the taste of life. Both tea and meditation have sources that spring from the myths of human prehistory. Their encounter took place somewhere in the early days of our era connected by people trying to live full lives. They share many similarities. Both involve replenishment: tea and meditation simultaneously relax the body and awaken the mind. Tea and meditation support physical and mental health. And so, tea and meditation fill and refine our everyday life. It is therefore not surprising that they have traveled together for ages as part of one approach to the art of living. At first, they traveled from China to other parts of Far East slowly, on foot, and then increasingly farther and faster until today they have reached all the way to us. When everything becomes subordinated to the market and our free time nearly extinct, tea culture and meditation arrives as a precious gift from the human past. That’s why we offer you these gifts together.
The Social Life of Tea: Empires, Economies, Ecologies and Enlightenment
A tropical plant that became a global commodity, tea has been loved, hated, shared, stolen and misunderstood. It has had many lives in differing times and places. Tea in China has played many roles: as medicine, Buddhist meditation aide, imperial tribute item, inspiration for art and a symbol of hospitality in peasant homes. Beyond China tea has been a medium of diplomacy and a spark for war and revolution. Currently tea is a global mass industrial product that is also an organic product involving traditional agricultural methods and orthodox processing. Join us to hear about more.In English with Croatian translation.
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