The power of mind

During the times of bandits and masterless samurais, a famous Japanese tea maker was asked by his master to take a trip to the city. Being a non-warrior type, he hesitated but his master told him to just dressed like a samurai and nobody will bother him. As he was walking around the city, he came face to face with a ronin. The ronin invited him for a fight, panic stricken, he tried to buy some time and said to the ronin, "I hv a very important tea ceremony to attend now, we will meet this evening by the bridge for the duel.'" The ronin agreed and the tea maker rushed to a samurai school and asked the chief samurai, "Please show me how a samurai dies in honour."

The chief instead asked him to make him a cup of tea. Perplexed, the tea maker started the tea making process, step by step (thinking that this would be the last time he would make tea and took every step as his last) and the chief watched every step closely. When the tea was done and was presented to the chief, it was the best tea that he had ever drunk. Hence, the chief told him,"'Go for the duel, approached it just as how you would make tea." Still unsure, the tea maker made his way to the bridge and kept pondering on the chief's words and picturing the process of getting ready to fight.

So, when he faced the ronin (with the exact state of mind as when he was brewing tea), he fixed his gaze on his opponent, then unhurriedly removed his hat, robe (folded it slowly) and proceed to robe himself for battle from head to foot remaining calm and unruffled throughout. The ronin started to get anxious - the more he watched, the more disconcerted he became, because he could not guess how great his opponent's skill with weapons really was.

When the tea maker had finished preparing himself, his final action was to draw his sword and as his sword was drawn hissing from its scabbard, and brandish in mid-air... the ronin threw himself to his knees, crying: "Spare my life, I beg you! I have never seen so skilled a fighter in all my life!"

Ref: 'Confucius from the Heart' by Yu Dan.
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