Our story

This is us with Metta (our pet-therapy-in-training pup, her name means “Loving Kindness”/”Universal Love”, the chief virtue of Buddhism).

There’s also Vajra (cat, his name is a symbol of Vajrayana Buddhism), and many friends and volunteer that help us and you’ll see often.

Paolo

I discovered Buddhist Meditation back in 2013, or perhaps it discovered me. 

Meditation became a very easy daily ritual for me after many years of disharmony, feelings of restlessness, and feeling anxious at times. 

A year after discovering meditation I quit my job, left a relationship and all my materialistic things behind in an attempt to become a Buddhist monk in Thailand, I lasted around two and half weeks in the monastery, but my yearning for harmony was still very much alive.

A few years on I lived in a Buddhist retreat center, this time I stayed more than half a year, and went to countless meditation retreats, in total I practiced silent sitting for a year but generally I still felt very restless. 

Tea Ceremony

It was in 2016 when I discovered Tea and Tea Ceremony.

I thought Tea Ceremony was just a cute Japanese thing that would never be for me. 

I got some tea from Mr. Nick Dilks (Prabhasvahara), bought a rice bowl in a charity shop and haven’t stopped drinking tea since.

I travelled to Taiwan and Malaysia to deepen my Tea experience, to understand more about the Tea itself, the connection to nature, and to begin to purify and rebalance my body and being.

I have practice Tea Ceremony since 2016, drank with various Tea Masters, and have held 1000’s of Tea Ceremonies for myself and others.

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Enlightenment Tea

In 2017 I was looking to buy a small flat for myself in Brighton, weird things happened and I found myself going for a viewing in a medium-sized house that needed quite a bit of work.

When I entered the lounge (which was much different then), it was immediately very clear to me: “This is meant to be a tea room”.

With a lot of time, energy, money, the help of volunteers and many friends, we began to build and develop Kalyana Loka (known as Enlightenment Tea today), trying to serve others with Tea Ceremony, bringing clarity, harmony, and balance in people’s lives.

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Zhenmin

(coming soon)