When my mind begins to travel, she sees simplicity as social justice. Take your ordinary ceramic coffee cup. What I pictured today working a while in a Hawai’i-garden is a ceramic coffee cup as requirement for airplane travel. Approaching the airline check-in you have are ready. The stern airport security clerk computerizes passport and airline paperwork, shifting to a last requirement. “Ceramic cup?” she asks, a note of kindness but that stare tells otherwise. All ceramic cup business this one.

“Right here!” you say cheerfully and is energy truthful because while preparing for a trip, let’s say to Hawai’i, chosen was an early-morning favorite that is durable, stylish, and keeps coffee high temperature for a good while. I heart parsley the cup reads.

In my imagination I see an airport like San Francisco International (SFO) crowded as flyers depart and arrive from locales everywhere possible around the globe. Following through on the new travel requirement, each traveler carries an empty ceramic cup and many folks carry a cup in hand rather than fragilely crammed in a carry on. Visible to the observing eye are ceramic cups in hundreds and hundreds of designs, colors, textures, and faiths (this cup is sure to last).

On a social justice scale for the environment’s sake visualize the amount of refuse saved from landfill delivery. Available instead is a ceramic cup familiarly brought wherever the day’s adventure continues. Even if any one of us never goes on an airplane simply bringing a ceramic cup wherever we go during our day has amazing influence. For this one beverage moment we done did right by nature and the impact that cup debris in landfills and oceans has on her.

Once in a comfy airplane seat, coffee is served directly into your ceramic cup. Or any beverage chosen within reason. A soft cloth dries the cup and traveling continues along the mindful path. Consider too how often while on vacation relying on a disposable cup never has to happen.

Why the cup needs to be ceramic is that fragility factor while on life’s path. When caring for a material with such potential for being broken, we are more present. And explains why from a Buddhist perspective an empty cup symbolizes choices each of us make to fill our day. Every morning if in an energetic mindset to be awake for this newly new one day, we are an empty cup easily “broken” if not caring for ourselves healthily. Picturing a Hawai’i traveler toting an empty ceramic cup, what I envisage are unusual, potential experiences to unexpectedly fill up on, like stillness.

True that carrying a ceramic cup around while traveling is precisely an irritating nuisance. Probably this energetic state began earlier before getting to the Kona airport, a common vacation starting on hustle and bustle. Yet landing at Kona isn’t either because the airport is small and efficient and right away energy shifts a few levels to relaxed. If the airplane arrives anytime between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. one suggestion I offer is bringing your ceramic cup to Kona Mountain Coffee.

Located a few miles from the airport the coffee served has spiritual value. The beans are grown in proximity, on a verdant mountain farm briefly distant from the shop, and upon the brew pouring, nature and people are filling a cup based on expert harvesting and roasting in the works. What goes in the cup has millions of years practice. Meaning that Hawai’i Islands formed over a long historical period and coffee grown here today has heritage based on ideal environmental nurture conditions to grow a coffee bean many agree is one of the best globally: weather, soil, knowledge, and love are the reasons why.

Besides agreeing to carry around a ceramic cup that might shatter any time, symbolic for slowing way down to excursion on adventures, paying attention to every lava stone on the path—if this contract to follow through on mindfulness while vacationing has your signature—why not go forward on further newness which is to sit still for a while. Outside Kona Mountain Coffee are a few chairs and the weather is often warm and supportive. Drinking a cup of coffee here leisurely is one of my favorite reminders. I am alive and at ease sitting in a café chair simply breathing.

If I don’t take time to enjoy one of the best cups of coffee I have had so far (countless varieties I have researched) in my brief lifetime—compared to Hawai’i Islands, her millions of years—how honest am I being in my day? Ten minutes to appreciate the best? Really? Savoring awesome coffee, mindfully valued in a ceramic cup traveled many thousands of miles, increases our chances for diverse experiences having thoughtful influence on a life—yours, mine, and each of us all.

Compare what I write to lining up at a café, ordering a drink in a to-go cup, and minutes later in the trash is the fastness of being in a rushed moment. Understandable why we choose disposable’s convenience. Ceramic cup peril teeters in the fragility balance. For example, I brought a favorite one to a day gig and once full with green tea I turned a corner too fast and smashed into smithereens went the ceramic cup. I was teary for a quick second because I cared for that cup. Yet I’m glad I made the effort to not rely on a disposable one. Even if my environmental and spiritual effort smashed to nothing in impermanence what remains is a feeling in my life that I made an intentional striving. What else do we have at the end of each day?

Some Buddhists perceive the ceramic cup as a teacher. Why pretend that life isn’t impermanent. One practice that merits a daily routine whether on vacation or on another schedule is ceramic cup tutoring how to surrender. The day is over and so I turn the cup over. She rests while I am too and when I wake up in the morning I right side her and each of us being empty begin this brand-new day together. Coffee served in my house is often fantastic so I am grateful to start the day on a fully-realized spiritual cup that continually fills and empties.

In alliance with these words I wrote a few days before, yesterday I lived all the suggestions in this essay. Early morning I chose my favorite ceramic cup. And I traveled into the perilous day toting her wherever I went. And consequence for sure was that I did slow down. And at Kona Mountain Coffee I sat especially still while enjoying a delicious cup of 5 p.m. coffee. And when I went to sleep later in the evening, I turned the ceramic cup over to signal a day’s closure and an hour ago this new morning, being open and ready for a day to start, I filled the cup with strong, flavorful coffee. Gratitude poured pure and simple.