Akemi's Blog

Explore Teaism with your favorite drink, now!

From August 10 till yesterday I introduced Kakuzo Okakura's "The Book of Tea" in my blog. After over hundred years since it was written, his words still clearly depict what Teaism (as he calls it) is and its relation to Taoism and Zen.

Enough for reading what it is. Why don't you explore Teaism yourself right now, in your own living space?

First, tidy your surroundings. Remember how spick and span the tea masters cleaned the tea room? By creating a clean, tidy space, your mind also finds a calm space.

Next, pick your favorite drink; tea, coffee, or hot chocolate (I would suggest avoiding any alcoholic beverages). It doesn't have to be matcha.

Put out all the necessary utensils to make your favorite drink in front of you; your favorite cup, a spoon to scoop your drink, a kettle to heat up water, and whatever else you need to make it. Once you laid them out, clean each item by hand, and dry each item with a clean kitchen towel, One by one.

When you clean each utensil, think about whomever or whatever was involved in making each item. As for your cup, if it's ceramic, think of a person (or a machine) that shaped the clay, put it into the kiln, packaged it in a box or a bag, until you finally possessed it.

When you make your drink, think of whomever and whatever was involved in growing the leaves (if it's tea) or the beans (if it's coffee or cocoa). Don't forget to think of those who worked on bringing you the clear water!

And before you have the first sip, why don't you show your upmost respect to all those people and things that made this drink possible? That's the entrance to the Teaism. Congratulations!

 

Tea room-- a true sanctuary

Over a hundred years ago Kakuzo Okakura already pointed out the importance of having a tea room as his/her sanctuary.  In this digital age, do we not need the tea room more than ever?

In the tea-room the fear of repetition is a constant presence. The various objects for the decoration of a room should be so selected that no color or design shall be repeated. If you have a living flower, a painting of flowers is not allowable. If you are using a round kettle, the water pitcher should be angular. A cup with a black glaze should not be associated with a tea-caddy of black lacquer. In placing a vase of an incense burner on the tokonoma, care should be taken not to put it in the exact centre, lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the tokonoma should be of a different kind of wood from the other pillars, in order to break any suggestion of monotony in the room.

...

The simplicity of the tea-room and its freedom from vulgarity make it truly a sanctuary from the vexations of the outer world. There and there alone one can consecrate himself to undisturbed adoration of the beautiful. In the sixteenth century the tea-room afforded a welcome respite from labor to the fierce warriors and statesmen engaged in the unification and reconstruction of Japan. In the seventeenth century, after the strict formalism of the Tokugawa rule had been developed, it offered the only opportunity possible for the free communion of artistic spirits. Before a great work of art there was no distinction between daimyo, samurai, and commoner.

Nowadays industrialism is making true refinement more and more difficult all the world over. Do we not need the tea-room more than ever?

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

 

Japanese tearoom in Uji

Asymmetry--another concept of a tea room

The "Abode of the Unsymmetrical" suggests another phase of our decorative scheme. The absence of symmetry in Japanese art objects has been often commented on by Western critics. This, also, is a result of a working out through Zennism of Taoist ideals. Confucianism, with its deep-seated idea of dualism, and Northern Buddhism with its worship of a trinity, were in no way opposed to the expression of symmetry. As a matter of fact, if we study the ancient bronzes of China or the religious arts of the Tang dynasty and the Nara period, we shall recognize a constant striving after symmetry. The decoration of our classical interiors was decidedly regular in its arrangement.

The Taoist and Zen conception of perfection, however, was different. The dynamic nature of their philosophy laid more stress upon the process through which perfection was sought than upon perfection itself. True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally completed the incomplete. The virility of life and art lay in its possibilities for growth. In the tea-room it is left for each guest in imagination to complete the total effect in relation to himself. Since Zennism has become the prevailing mode of thought, the art of the extreme Orient has purposefully avoided the symmetrical as expressing not only completion, but repetition.

Uniformity of design was considered fatal to the freshness of imagination. Thus, landscapes, birds, and flowers became the favorite subjects for depiction rather than the human figure, the latter being present in the person of the beholder himself. We are often too much in evidence as it is, and in spite of our vanity even self-regard is apt to become monotonous.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

 

Impermanence of a tea room

Over a hundred years ago, Kakuzo Okakura must have observed a huge contrast between the elaborate decoration of the Western rooms and the simplicity of Japan's tea room.  Below is the depiction in his own words.

The term, Abode of Vacancy, besides conveying the Taoist theory of the all-containing, involves the conception of a continued need of change in decorative motives. The tea-room is absolutely empty, except for what may be placed there temporarily to satisfy some aesthetic mood. Some special art object is brought in for the occasion, and everything else is selected and arranged to enhance the beauty of the principal theme. One cannot listen to different pieces of music at the same time, a real comprehension of the beautiful being possible only through concentration upon some central motive. Thus it will be seen that the system of decoration in our tea-rooms is opposed to that which obtains in the West, where the interior of a house is often converted into a museum.

To a Japanese, accustomed to simplicity of ornamentation and frequent change of decorative method, a Western interior permanently filled with a vast array of pictures, statuary, and bric-a-brac gives the impression of mere vulgar display of riches. It calls for a mighty wealth of appreciation to enjoy the constant sight of even a masterpiece, and limitless indeed must be the capacity for artistic feeling in those who can exist day after day in the midst of such confusion of color and form as is to be often seen in the homes of Europe and America.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

The true art of "cleaning"

Cleaning is one of important parts of life for a zen monk, as well as for a tea master.  It is often said that the process of cleaning a space and an object signifies the cleaning of one's spirit.  Here Okakura introduces a famous episode of Senno Rikyu and how he perfected "cleaning."

Even in the daytime the light in the room is subdued, for the low eaves of the slanting roof admit but few of the sun's rays. Everything is sober in tint from the ceiling to the floor; the guests themselves have carefully chosen garments of unobtrusive colors. The mellowness of age is over all, everything suggestive of recent acquirement being tabooed save only the one note of contrast furnished by the bamboo dipper and the linen napkin, both immaculately white and new. However faded the tea-room and the tea-equipage may seem, everything is absolutely clean. Not a particle of dust will be found in the darkest corner, for if any exists the host is not a tea-master. One of the first requisites of a tea-master is the knowledge of how to sweep, clean, and wash, for there is an art in cleaning and dusting.

...

In this connection there is a story of Rikyu which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the tea-masters. Rikyu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikyu, when Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikyu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground." "Young fool," chided the tea-master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikyu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn!

What Rikyu demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

Show one's humility and respect for others in the tea room

Zen monks were avid practitioner of Teaism, so were samurais in Japan's civil war period in the 16th century.  Below describes how samurais used to approach Teaism.  

Thus prepared the guest will silently approach the sanctuary, and, if a samurai, will leave his sword on the rack beneath the eaves, the tea-room being preeminently the house of peace. Then he will bend low and creep into the room through a small door not more than three feet in height. This proceeding was incumbent on all guests—high and low alike—and was intended to inculcate humility. The order of precedence having been mutually agreed upon while resting in the machiai, the guests one by one will enter noiselessly and take their seats, first making obeisance to the picture or flower arrangement on the tokonoma.

The host will not enter the room until all the guests have seated themselves and quiet reigns with nothing to break the silence save the note of the boiling water in the iron kettle. The kettle sings well, for pieces of iron are so arranged in the bottom as to produce a peculiar melody in which one may hear the echoes of a cataract muffled by clouds, of a distant sea breaking among the rocks, a rainstorm sweeping through a bamboo forest, or of the soughing of pines on some faraway hill.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

The meaning of Roji, the garden path to the tea room

Again the roji, the garden path which leads from the machiai to the tea-room, signified the first stage of meditation—the passage into self-illumination.

The roji was intended to break connection with the outside world, and produce a fresh sensation conducive to the full enjoyment of aestheticism in the tea-room itself. One who has trodden this garden path cannot fail to remember how his spirit, as he walked in the twilight of evergreens over the regular irregularities of the stepping stones, beneath which lay dried pine needles, and passed beside the moss-covered granite lanterns, became uplifted above ordinary thoughts. One may be in the midst of a city, and yet feel as if he were in the forest far away from the dust and din of civilization.

Great was the ingenuity displayed by the tea-masters in producing these effects of serenity and purity. The nature of the sensations to be aroused in passing through the roji differed with different tea-masters. Some, like Rikyu, aimed at utter loneliness, and claimed the secret of making a roji was contained in the ancient ditty:

         "I look beyond;

         Flowers are not,

         Nor tinted leaves.

         On the sea beach

         A solitary cottage stands

         In the waning light

         Of an autumn eve."

Others, like Kobori-Enshu, sought for a different effect. Enshu said the idea of the garden path was to be found in the following verses:

         "A cluster of summer trees,

         A bit of the sea,

         A pale evening moon."

It is not difficult to gather his meaning. He wished to create the attitude of a newly awakened soul still lingering amid shadowy dreams of the past, yet bathing in the sweet unconsciousness of a mellow spiritual light, and yearning for the freedom that lay in the expanse beyond.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

Zen influence on a tea room

The most typical tea room is a square, four and a half tatami mat room. Kakuzo Okakura explains how Zen spirit is reflected in the square tea room.

The simplicity and purism of the tea-room resulted from emulation of the Zen monastery. A Zen monastery differs from those of other Buddhist sects inasmuch as it is meant only to be a dwelling place for the monks. Its chapel is not a place of worship or pilgrimage, but a college room where the students congregate for discussion and the practice of meditation. The room is bare except for a central alcove in which, behind the altar, is a statue of Bodhi Dharma, the founder of the sect, or of Sakyamuni attended by Kashiapa and Ananda, the two earliest Zen patriarchs. On the altar, flowers and incense are offered up in the memory of the great contributions which these sages made to Zen. We have already said that it was the ritual instituted by the Zen monks of successively drinking tea out of a bowl before the image of Bodhi Dharma, which laid the foundations of the tea ceremony. We might add here that the altar of the Zen chapel was the prototype of the Tokonoma—the place of honor in a Japanese room where paintings and flowers are placed for the edification of the guests.

All our great tea-masters were students of Zen and attempted to introduce the spirit of Zennism into the actualities of life. Thus the room, like the other equipments of the tea ceremony, reflects many of the Zen doctrines. The size of the orthodox tea-room, which is four mats and a half, or ten feet square, is determined by a passage in the Sutra of Vikramadytia. In that interesting work, Vikramadytia welcomes the Saint Manjushiri and eighty-four thousand disciples of Buddha in a room of this size—an allegory based on the theory of the non-existence of space to the truly enlightened.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

Significance of a tea room

In the fourth chapter of his book The Book of Tea, Kakuzo Okakura describes the significance of a tea room, where Teaism is performed. Since Okakura wrote this book 110 years ago, Japan's architecture and its simplistic style has become better known to the western world. His description about tea room and its history, however, is worth revisiting. Here it is.

IV. The Tea-Room

...

The first independent tea-room was the creation of Senno-Soyeki, commonly known by his later name of Rikyu, the greatest of all tea masters, who, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Taiko Hideyoshi, instituted and brought to a high state of perfection the formalities of the Tea ceremony. The proportions of the tea-room had been previously determined by Jowo—a famous tea master of the fifteenth century. The early tea-room consisted merely of a portion of the ordinary drawing room partitioned off by screens for the purpose of the tea gathering. The portion partitioned off was called the Kakoi (enclosure), a name still applied to those tea-rooms which are built into a house and are not independent constructions.

The Sukiya consists of the tea-room proper, designed to accommodate not more than five persons, a number suggestive of the saying "more than the Graces and less than the Muses," an anteroom (mizuya) where the tea utensils are washed and arranged before being brought in, a portico (machiai) in which the guests wait until they receive the summons to enter the tea-room, and a garden path (the roji) which connects the machiai with the tea-room.

The tea-room is unimpressive in appearance. It is smaller than the smallest of Japanese houses, while the materials used in its construction are intended to give the suggestion of refined poverty. Yet we must remember that all this is the result of profound artistic forethought, and that the details have been worked out with care perhaps even greater than that expended on the building of the richest palaces and temples. A good tea-room is more costly than an ordinary mansion, for the selection of its materials, as well as its workmanship, requires immense care and precision. Indeed, the carpenters employed by the tea-masters form a distinct and highly honored class among artisans, their work being no less delicate than that of the makers of lacquer cabinets.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

Zen and its influence on Teaism

A special contribution of Zen to Eastern thought was its recognition of the mundane as of equal importance with the spiritual. It held that in the great relation of things there was no distinction of small and great, an atom possessing equal possibilities with the universe. The seeker for perfection must discover in his own life the reflection of the inner light.

The organization of the Zen monastery was very significant of this point of view. To every member, except the abbot, was assigned some special work in the caretaking of the monastery, and curiously enough, to the novices was committed the lighter duties, while to the most respected and advanced monks were given the more irksome and menial tasks. Such services formed a part of the Zen discipline and every least action must be done absolutely perfectly.

Thus many a weighty discussion ensued while weeding the garden, paring a turnip, or serving tea. The whole ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life. Taoism furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals, Zennism made them practical.

(The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura)

 

 

 

By Shunsō Shōshu (1752-1835) (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons