BLACK TEA

BLACK TEA: HEALING POWERS

The tea plantations in the salubrious Central Highlands of Sri Lanka [High Grown Tea] produces the finest Black Tea in the world that still goes by the British Colonial brand name of Ceylon Tea, in spite of the ancient tropical island has now been called Sri Lanka, i.e. the Sanskrit prefix of "Sri" meaning resplendent being added to the most ancient name of the island "Lanka".
 During your Sri Lanka Holidays visit Ceylon Health Triangle of Sri Lanka to enjoy Ceylon Tea, the finest Black Tea in the world and rejuvenate in the highland sanatariums of Sri Lanka Holidays Nuwara Eliya or  Ella or  Bandarawela or Haputale or Diyatalawe

The healing powers of Black Tea run back to 2737 BC in China. In ancient Indian Ayurveda medical science, Black Tea was identified as a medicament belonging to the class of “Rasayana” promoting good health, raising resistance to diseases & assuring full life span. Rasayana do not belong to the category of medicaments that are put into work following the onset of a disease. Though Black Tea was known to Europeans since 16th century, became popular among the affluent society since the 17th century, became an essential commodity of the life of western world since 19th century, it was not till the 21st century that Europeans began to grasp the medicinal value of the beverage Black Tea made of the Eastern herb Camellia sinensis. Black tea took root in the western lifestyle as an invigorating beverage that would bring in instant cheer & gear up the tired mind & body. Black Tea was also to become the centerpiece of social gatherings.

Recent scientific studies on Black tea have begun to unravel the specific beneficial effects on the human body & mind.

Black tea is rich in antioxidants
Black Tea, Green tea & Oolong tea are excellent sources of Antioxidant called polyphenos: catechins, flavonols, the flavins and the arubigins. Antioxidants are substances that reduce, neutralize, and prevent the damage done to the cells of human body by Free radicals.
Highly reactive Free radicals- atoms, molecules, or ions with unpaired electrons- are borne out of oxidation process of our being. Left to its own killer sway, the Free radicals could injure surrounding cells & cause damage to DNA, resulting in cancer.While human body regulates a complex system of multiple types of antioxidants, low levels of antioxidants results in damaging or killing human cells, the building blocks of the system.

Black tea helps prevent type 2 diabetes
That Black tea (the same green leaf Camellia sinensis is processed into Green tea, Black Tea or Oolong tea by controlling biological oxidation) may help to combat type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease is discovered at the laboratory stage by a group of scientists led by Dr. Graham Rena of Neurosciences Institute of the University of Dundee, Scotland in March 2008. The discovery was made on a research to locate compounds with a potential to replace insulin in treatment of patients of diabetes 2. Diabetes 2 is a medical complication in which patient’s body cells become resistant to insulin, an essential regulator of blood sugar.

Dr. Rena found Black Tea antioxidants theaflavins and thearubigins to mimick the insulin action on proteins known as foxos (forkhead transcription factor family O). Now it has been increasingly recognized that obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance & cardiovascular diseases are varied manifestations of a multifaceted medical complication: metabolic syndrome. It seems, at last, the western medical science has stuck a cord with ancient Ayurvedic treatments which boils down to three root causes with respect of all maladies & deceases: vata (wind/spirit/air), pitta (bile) and kapha (phlegm). So called metabolic syndrome is an aspect of Pitta (bile).
Publication: journal Aging Cell. March 2008
Lead scientist: Dr Graham Rena, Caledonian Research Foundation Fellow & Lecturer.

Black tea helps prevent Heart strokes 
American Heart Association's annual International Stroke Conference in San Diego, California was presented with human observational results of 9 studies across 195,000 individuals & 4378 heart strokes. The research was carried out by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) & sponsored by The Unilever Lipton Institute of Tea funded this study.

"What we saw was that there was a consistency of effect of appreciable magnitude," "By drinking three cups of tea a day, the risk of a stroke was reduced by 21 percent. It didn't matter if it was Green tea or Black tea” said author Lenore Arab. Although a randomized clinical trial is needed to confirm this effect, the findings suggest that drinking three cups of Green tea or Black Tea a day could help prevent an ischemic stroke- blockage of an artery in the brain. It has been speculated antioxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) or the amino acid theanine is responsible for the effect.
Publication: online edition of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, February 2009.
Lead scientist: Dr. Lenore Arab, a professor of biological chemistry.

Black tea helps reduce the risk on breast cancer
Based on a case-control study across 5000 women aged between 20 & 74 who had been treated for breast cancer & 4500 healthy women, it was claimed reduced risk of cancer in women under 50 who drank three or more cups a day. Younger women who consumed large amounts of Black Tea each day cut their chances of developing any type of breast tumor by about 37%.
Publication: online edition of Stroke: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a peer-reviewed medical journal January 2009.
Lead scientist: Dr Nagi Kumar of the Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida

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BUDDHA'S LIGHT TEA

BUDDHA'S LIGHT TEA
On this Vesākha (Pali; Sanskrit: Vaiśākha, Sinhala: Wesak or Vesak) day (another anniversary of birth, enlightenment and the final extinction of Gautama Buddha, it brings me, living in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, a Theravada Buddhist (though not a good one at it), immense joy to present you all guys and dolls with one of those accessible and appealing tales and anecdotes of a book titled “Where is your Buddha Nature?”- stories to instruct and inspire written by renowned Venerable Master Hsing Yun, a whole-hearted Mahayana Buddhist, the founder of Fo Guan Shan monastery, Taiwan published by “Buddha Light and Living Private Limited.
Though Sri Lanka has been the custodian of Thervada Buddhism since the ancient times, it has also been enriched with some Sri Lanka Holidays cultural attractions of Mahayan Buddhism too. Among the most popular Buddhist sites featuring colossal Buddha statues in Sri Lanka, the statues in Buduruwagala, unlike others depict the concepts of Mahayana Buddhism.
So, following is the gleaning from “Where is your Buddha Nature?” ISBN 978-93-82017-09-7., of course with the exception of images and blushing (they are reddening, aren't they?) labels.

Main hall of Fo Guang Shan [Chinese: Buddha's Light Mountain] in Kaohsuiung. Fo Guang Shan is the largest Buddhist monastery & the largest charity organization of Taiwan.  

Buddha’s Light Tea

Ding Sumei lived in Taichung. Before she became a Buddhist, she had no religious belief whatsoever.

Several years ago, during a very hot period in the middle of the summer, Ding came to Fo Guang Shan as a tourist wanting to see sites. As she strolled around around the mountain top looking at the statues and buildings, she gradually became quite warm. Pretty soon she began to perspire and feel thirsty. As she passed the Buddha Hall, she was received to be approached by a lay worker who asked if she would like to come inside for a cup of tea.

“Please try a cup of Buddha’s Light Tea,” the young woman said to her.

Since its inception in the year 1967, Fo Guang Shan of Mahayana Buddhism has evolved from bamboo forest to the largest monastery in Taiwan. Ven. Master Hsing Yun has inspired selfless devotion of over 1,000 monastics as well as the ardent support of many lay devotees to preach Buddhist way of living.

Ding went inside, and immediately her head was filled with the delightful aroma of tea steeping. Other people in the room were happily passing the time, conversing and then took out one hundred yuan to give to the young woman who asked her to come inside.

When the young woman saw what Ding was doing, she waved he hand I polite refusal.|

‘We have a rule here,” she said by way of explanation. “We don’t talk about others, and we don’t take money from anyone. We just talk about the Dharma [1] and drink tea.”

Ding laughed when she heard that and asked why the monastery would make such a rule like that.

“Master Hsing Yun made the rule over ten years ago,” the young woman explained. “ At the time, he noticed that people wo came to our monastery needed a pace to just rest and enjoy themselves for a while, so he set aside this room for that purpose. Since then, Buddha’s Light Tea has become pretty famous. People. People who come here now expect to have tea. So many people want tit, in fact, we have set up several other rooms here where you can also get Buddha’s Light Tea.”

Founder of Fo Guang Shan Monastery, Ven. Master Hsing Yun has dedicated himself to propagating the ideals of "Humanistic Buddhism" and being "a global person" in which the spirits of joy and harmony, integration and co-existence, respect and magnanimity, equality and peace are widely disseminated.

“It is a good tea,” Ding said

“I am glad you have enjoyed it, & I hope you will be like others & come back for more very soon.

Ding really did enjoy the tea. After that first visit she began returning almost once a month to Fo Guang Shan. Whenever she came, she always brought friends or relatives with her, and the first thing she always did was go straight to have some Buddha’s Light Tea.

Once someone asked her, “What’s so great about Buddha’s Light  Tea? Taiwan has many great teas. Why do you think that one is so special?”

‘Other teas are good, that’s true,’ Ding said, ‘but only Buddha’s Light Tea carries the flavor of the Dharma in it. One sip of that tea can change your whole life.”

The Finest Black Tea in the world
is produced in Sri Lanka: Ceylon Tea 

 Sri Lanka's Central Highlands is the main Ceylon Tea producing zone of Sri Lanka. During your Sri Lanka Holidays visit the Ceylon Health Triangle in the Highlands to enjoy the finest tea in the world and rejuvenate in the highland sanatariums. 

[1] For practicing Buddhists, references to "dharma" (dhamma in Pali) particularly as "the Dharma", generally means the teachings of the Buddha, commonly known throughout the East as Buddha-Dharma.

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Priceless ancient Sinhalese sculptures to England

Priceless ancient Sinhalese sculptures to England
Following is a gleaning [with the exception of images and labels] off the paragraph titled “Life in Colombo” in Pablo Neruda’ s [1904-1973] “Memoirs” ISBN 0 14 00 4661 5. Pablo Neruda, who went on to win Noble prize for Literature in the year 1971, was Consul of Chile in Ceylon [Sri Lanka] during 1928-1929. The preceding paragraph titled “Ceylon” begins: In 1929, Ceylon, the most beautiful of the world large islands…

 A garden doorstep at a home in Devon in the UK has been identified as a rare Sri Lankan artefact expected to fetch more than £30,000 ($47,500) at auction.

The auctioneer Bonhams says the carved granite step is a Sandakada Pahana - or moonstone - similar to those found in temples dating from Sri Lanka's Anuradhapura period (c400BC-1000AD). 22 January 2013  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21137743

Moonstone at Polonnaruwa vatadage, Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka

Life in Colombo

In Colombo there seemed to be no visible symptoms of revolution. Its political climate was different from India’s. Everything was engulfed by an oppressive calm. The country supplied England with the finest tea in the world.[1]
The country was split into sectors, or compartments. The English, who occupied the tip of the pyramid and lived in large residences with gardens, were followed by a middle class much like that in South American countries. They were and may still be called burghers [2] and were descendants of the former Boers, the Dutch settlers of South Africa exiled to Ceylon during the colonial war of the last century.

Below them was Buddhist and Moslem population of Ceylon, which numbered many millions. And still further down, making up the worst-paid working ranks, and also running into the millions, were the Indian immigrants, all from the southern part of India; they spoke Tamil and professed the Hindu religion.
In the so-called “polite society”, which paraded its finest clothes and jewels in Colombo’s exclusive clubs, two famous snobs competed for leadership. One was a phony French nobleman, Count de Mauny, who had a group of devotees. The other was an elegant and devil-may-care Pole, my friend Winzer, who dominated salons there were. This may was extremely witty, quite cynical, and a source of knowledge about everything in the world.

He had a strange profession-“preserver of the cultural and archeological treasures”- and going along with him one of his official expeditions was an eye-opening experience to me.
Excavations had brought to light two magnificent cities the jungle had swallowed up: Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. Pillars and corridors gleamed once again in brilliant Singhalese sun. Naturally, everything that could be shipped was carefully packed and went on its way to the British Museum in London.

My friend Wizer was pretty good at his work. He went to remote monasteries and, to the enormous satisfaction [3] of the Buddhist monks, he loaded the official van with marvelous stone sculptures, thousands of years old, that would end up in England’s museums. The look of contentment [4] on the faces of the saffron-garbed monks was something to see, when Winzer would leave them some painted-up celluloid Buddhist images, made in Japan, as replacements for their own antiques. They would look them over with reverent eyes [5] and set them up on the same altars from which the jasper and granite statues had smiled [5] for centuries.My fiend Winzer was an excellent product of the Empire; that is, an elegant short-change artist.

Footnotes by bunpeiris
[1] The Finest Black Tea in the World is produced in Sri Lanka: Ceylon Tea.
[2] Burghers in Sri Lanka are descendants of Portugusese [1505- 1640] & Dutch [1640-1796] invaders of Sri Lanka
[3], [4] & [5] Winzer would have hoodwinked Buddhist monks that the priceless sculptures would be returned to them once the exhibition in Colombo comes to its glorious end. There was no exhibition.

[5] Such is the craftsmanship of most of ancient Buddha statues, each of them seem to wear a veil of a smile. Children are quick to note the smile as bunpeiris has done decades ago at Sri Lanka Holidays Gal Vihara, Polonnaruwa.

In eternal love with Gal Vihara since the discovery of it at the early medieval lost city of Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka

Nearly a century and a half following the wild flight, the great escape from the natural fortress of Kandy surrounded by wooded hills and River Mahaweli Ganga (Sinhala: Great Sandy River), through Anuradhapura,"a world of hewn stone pillars" of Sri Lanka Holidays by British sailor Robert Knox Jr. (1641-1720) (An historical relation of the Island of Ceylon) in the year 1679, Lieutenant Mitchell Henry Fagan of the 2nd Ceylon Regiment, forcing his way through almost impenetrable undergrowth in the year 1820, encountered-face to face-a colossal statue gazing out at him from the foliage: Gal vihara. A colossal figure of Buddha cut from a granite wall was most serenely gazing at him from out of the foliage. "I cannot describe what I felt at that moment," he wrote.

"Neither could I when I first saw the great statues at the tender age of 8. It was like dream that you dream when just about to wake up. And you wake up with the dream & still on a cloud. But the upright Big Buddha most definitely smiled at me. Am I dreaming? No, Big Buddha smiled again." That's bunpeiris. There sprang up an eternal love on the spur of the moment: Gal Vihara was no longer a rock temple of rock carved statues. It is the heartthrob. If it was the flow of the sculptor's heart then, since then, it has been the stream that wash and cleanse the minds and the hearts of all those who stand in front of it. Stand, kneel or sit in front of the great statues. The sweeping serenity of the statues would breeze-open your heart and inflame it with eternal love. 

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