Zen Culture Part 13

_The "dewy path" to teahouse

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THE TEA CEREMONY combines all the faces of Zen--art, tranquility, aesthetics. It is in a sense the essence of Zen culture. Yet this Zen ritual has been explained to the West in so many volumes of wordy gush that almost any description, including the above, deserves to be met with skepticism. There has to be more to the tea ceremony than meets the eye--and there is. But before unraveling the unseen threads of this Zen fabric, let us pause for a moment to consider the beverage itself.

The drinking of tea seems almost to have been the world's second oldest profession. One legend claims that tea was discovered in the year 2737 B.C., when leaves from a tea bush

accidentally dropped into the campfire cauldron of a Chinese emperor- aesthete. Early Chinese texts are sometimes vague about the ident.i.ty of medicinal plants, but it is clear that by the time of Confucius (around 500 B.C.) tea was a well-known drink. During the Tang dynasty (618-907), tea leaves were treated with smoke and compressed into a semimoist cake, slices of which would subsequently be boiled to produce a beverage--a method that was perpetuated for many centuries in Russia.

The Chinese spiced this boiled tea with salt, a holdover from even earlier times when a variety of unexpected condiments were added, including orange peel, ginger, and onions.

The refined courtiers of the Sung dynasty (960-1279) apparently found brick tea out of keeping with their delicate tastes, for they replaced it with a drink in which finely ground tea leaves were blended with boiling water directly in the cup. Whipped with a bamboo whisk, this mixture superficially resembled shaving lather in texture, although the color could be a fine jade green if fresh leaves were used. (This green powdered tea was the drink one day to become enshrined in the Zen tea ceremony.) The Chinese chronicle of tea ends with the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), which saw the rise of the familiar steeping process, now the commonly accepted practice worldwide. Our ignorance of the earlier methods of tea preparation may be attributed to the West's discovery of China after the older methods had been discarded.

Unlike its misty origins in China, the use of tea in j.a.pan is well authenticated. In the year 792 the j.a.panese emperor surprised the court by holding a large tea party at which Buddhist monks and other notables were invited to sample a curious beverage discovered by his emissaries to the T'ang court. Tea drinking soon became a fas.h.i.+onable pastime, occupying a position comparable to taking coffee in eighteenth-century Europe, but tea remained an expensive import and little thought was given to cultivation in j.a.pan. This changed early in the ninth century when tea drinking came to be a.s.sociated with the new Buddhist sects of Tendai and s.h.i.+ngon. Under the supervision of the court, tea growing was begun near Kyoto, where the emperor blessed the bushes with a special _sutra_ in the spring and autumn. Tea remained an aristocratic habit for several centuries thereafter and did not become really popular until the late twelfth century, when the famous Zen teacher Eisai "reintroduced" the beverage upon his return from China. Eisai also brought back new seeds for planting, the progeny of which are still growing.

Chinese Ch'an monks had long been devoted to tea. In fact, a famous but apocryphal legend attributes the tea bush to Bodhidharma, relating that during his nine years of meditation outside Shao-lin monastery he found himself nodding and in anger tore off his eyelids and flung them to the ground, whereupon tea plants sprang forth. There was a reason for the legend. Tea had long been used to forestall drowsiness during long periods of meditation. (A cup of modern steeped tea contains an average three-quarters of a grain of caffeine, about half the amount in a cup of coffee.) The drinking of tea became ritualized in Ch'an monasteries, where the monks would congregate before an image of Bodhidharma and take a sacrament of tea from a single shared bowl in his memory. This ritual was gradually adopted by j.a.panese Zen monasteries, providing the forerunner of the solemn moment of shared tea which became the basis of the tea ceremony.

The j.a.panese aristocracy and the warrior cla.s.s also took up tea, and borrowing a custom from the Sung court, gave tea-tasting parties, similar to modern wine-tasting affairs. From the time of As.h.i.+kaga Takauji to As.h.i.+kaga Yos.h.i.+masa, these parties were an accompaniment to many of the courtly evenings spent admiring Sung ceramics and discussing Sung art theories. Although Zen monks played a prominent role in these aesthetic gatherings, the drinking of tea in monasteries seems to have been a separate activity. Thus the ceremonial drinking of tea developed in two parallel schools: the aristocracy used it in refined entertainments while the Zen monks drank tea as a pious celebration of their faith.

These two schools were eventually merged into the Zen-

inspired gathering known simply as the tea ceremony, _cha-no-yu_. But first there was the period when each influenced the other. Zen aesthetic theory gradually crept into the aristocratic tea parties, as taste turned away from the polished Sung ceramic cups toward ordinary pottery. This was the beginning of the tradition of deliberate understatement later to be so important in the tea ceremony. Zen ideals took over the warrior tea parties. During his reign, Yos.h.i.+masa was persuaded by a famous Zen monk-aesthetician to construct a small room for drinking tea monastery-style. The mood in this room was all Zen, from the calligraphic scroll hanging in the tokonoma art alcove to the ceremonial flower arrangements and the single cup shared in a sober ritual. After this, those who would serve tea had first to study the tea rituals of the Zen monastery. Furthermore, warriors came to believe that the Zen tea ritual would help their fighting discipline.

By the sixteenth century the discipline and tranquility of the ceremony had become fixed, but the full development of _cha-no-yu _as a vehicle for preserving Zen aesthetic theory was yet to come. Gradually, one by one, the ornate aspects of the earlier Sung tea parties were purged.

The idea took hold that tea should be drunk not in a room part.i.tioned off from the rest of the house, but in a special thatch-roofed hut constructed specifically for the purpose, giving tea drinking an air of conspicuous poverty. The elaborate vessels and interior appointments favored in the fifteenth century were supplanted in the sixteenth by rugged, folk-style pottery and an interior decor as restrained as a monastery. By stressing an artificial poverty, the ceremony became a living embodiment of Zen with its distaste for materialism and the world of getting and spending.

It remained for a sixteenth-century Zen teacher to bring all the aesthetic ideas in the tea ceremony together in a rigid system. He was Sen no Rikyu (1521-1591), who began as the tea instructor of n.o.bunaga and continued to play the same role for Hideyos.h.i.+. Hideyos.h.i.+ was devoted to the tea ceremony, and under his patronage Rikyu formalized the cla.s.sic rules under which _cha-no-yu _is practiced today.

The most famous anecdote from Rikyu's life is the incident remembered as the "tea party of the morning glory." As the son of a merchant in a port city, Rikyu developed a taste for the new and exotic. At one time he began the cultivation of imported European morning glories, a novel flower to the j.a.panese, which he sometimes used for the floral display accompanying the tea ceremony. Hideyos.h.i.+, learning of these new flowers, informed Rikyu that he wished to take morning tea with him in order to see the blossoms at their finest. On the selected date, Hideyos.h.i.+ arrived to find that all the flowers in the garden had been plucked; not a single petal was to be seen. Understandably out of temper, he proceeded to the tea hut--there to discover a single morning glory, still wet with the dews of dawn, standing in the _tokonoma _alcove, a perfect ill.u.s.tration of the Zen precept of sufficiency in restraint.

Tea ceremonies today are held in special backyard gardens, equipped for the purpose with a waiting shelter at the entrance and a tiny teahouse at the far end. When one arrives at the appointed time, one joins the two or three other guests in the garden shed for a waiting period designed to encourage a relaxed state of mind and the requisite Zen tranquility. The tea garden, known as the _roji_, or "dewy path,"

differs from conventional j.a.panese temple gardens in that it is merely a pa.s.sageway between the waiting shelter and the teahouse. Since the feeling is meant to be that of a mountain path, there are no ponds or elaborate stone arrangements. The only natural rocks in evidence are the stepping stones themselves, but along the path are a carved stone in the shape of a water basin and a bamboo dipper, so that one can rinse one's mouth before taking tea, and a stone lantern to provide illumination for evening gatherings. The unpretentious stones of the walkway, set deep in natural mossy beds, divide the garden into two parts, winding through it like a curving, natural path. Dotted about the garden are carefully pruned pine trees, azalea bushes clipped into huge globes, or perhaps a towering cryptomeria whose arching branches protect guests against the afternoon sun. Although the garden floor is swept clean, it may still have a vagrant leaf or pine needle strewn here and there. As one waits for the host's appearance, the garden slowly begins to impose a kind of magic, drawing one away from the outside world.

When all the guests have arrived, they sound a wooden gong, and the host silently appears to beckon them to the tea room. Each guest in turn stops at the water basin for a sip. At closer range, the teahouse turns out to be a rustic thatch-roofed hut with gray plaster walls and an asymmetrical supporting framework of hand-hewn woods. The floor is pitched above the ground as in the traditional house, but instead of a doorway there is a small square hole through which one must climb on his knees--a psychological design feature intended to ensure that all worldly dignity is left outside. Only the humble can enter here, for each must kneel in the sight of the others present.

The interior of the tea room may feel cramped at first. Although the room is virtually bare, there seems little s.p.a.ce left after the other guests have knelt about the central hearth. The room is in the _sukiya _style favored by Rikyu, with the walls a patchwork of dull plaster, raw wood, a few _shoji _rice-paper windows, and a small _tokonoma_ art alcove. The only decoration is a single object on the _tokonoma_ dais and the hanging scroll against the back wall. This impression of simple rusticity is deliberately deceptive, however, for the tea room is actually fas.h.i.+oned from the finest available woods and costs considerably more per unit area than the host's home. It is ironic that the sense of poverty and anti-materialism pervading the tea room can be achieved only at enormous expense, yet this deceit is one of the outstanding creations of Zen culture. The room and its psychological impact have been eloquently a.n.a.lyzed by the Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki.

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As I look around, in spite of its obvious simplicity the room betrays every mark of thoughtful designing: the windows are irregularly inserted; the ceiling is not of one pattern; the materials used, simple and un-ornamental . . . the floor has a small square opening where hot water is boiling in an artistically-shaped iron kettle.

The papered _shoji_ covering the windows admit only soft light, shutting out direct suns.h.i.+ne. . . . As I sit here quietly before the fireplace, I become conscious of the burning of incense. The odor is singularly nerve soothing. . . . Thus composed in mind, I hear a soft breeze pa.s.sing through the needle leaves of the pine tree; the sound mingles with the trickling of water from a bamboo pipe into the stone basin.1

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The tea ceremony is intended to engage all the senses, soothing each in turn. As described by Suzuki, the organs of sight, hearing, and smell are all embraced even before the ceremony begins. The purpose, of course, is to create a feeling of harmony and tranquility conducive to the reverential spirit of the Zen sacrament. The surroundings ma.s.sage your mind and adjust your att.i.tude. This point is particularly stressed by Suzuki.

_Where [tranquility] is lacking, the art will lose its significance altogether. . . . The ma.s.sing of rocks, the trickling of water, the thatched hut, the old pine trees sheltering it, the moss-covered stone lantern, the sizzling of the kettle water, and the light softly filtering through the paper screens--all these are meant uniformly to create a meditative frame of mind.2

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If a multicourse ceremony is in store, a light meal of _hors d'oeuvres _and sake is served first. If the dinner hour is near, it may in fact be a substantial repast, all of which is eaten from lacquer or porcelain bowls set on a tray on the floor. After the food is consumed, the guests file out of the teahouse and wait for the host to announce the beginning of the actual tea ceremony. When they return, the ambience of the tea room has been subtly changed: the hanging scroll has vanished from the _tokonoma _to be replaced by a simple vase containing one or two partially opened buds; and a cheerful charcoal fire, seasoned with pine needles and a touch of incense, glows from the sunken hearth in the center of the room there. Water is boiling in a kettle, emitting a sound that suggests wind in a pine forest, a subtle aural effect caused by small bits of iron attached to the bottom of the vessel.

Beside the seated host are the implements of the ceremony: a lacquer or ceramic tea caddy with the powdered green tea

(_koicha_), a jar of cold water for replenis.h.i.+ng the kettle, a bamboo dipper, a new bamboo whisk, a receptacle for waste water, a linen napkin for the bowl, and, finally, the tea bowl itself, best described as a Zen loving cup or chalice. All the utensils have been selected for their special aesthetic qualities, but the bowl is always the unchallenged _piece de resistance_ and may well be an heirloom from the hand of a seventeenth-century potter. Each guest is also provided with tiny sweet cakes, to salve his mouth against the bitter tea.

With everything at hand, the host begins to prepare the whipped green tea. It is a seated dance, an orchestrated ritual, as deliberate, paced, and formal as the elevation of the host in a Catholic Ma.s.s. All the gestures have been practiced for years, until they fit together in a fluid motion. First the bowl is rinsed with hot water from the kettle and wiped with a napkin. Next the bamboo scoop is used to transport the powdered _koicha _from the caddy into the bowl, after which boiling water is added from the bamboo dipper. The host then proceeds, with measured motions, to blend the tea with the bamboo whisk, gradually transforming the dry powder and boiling water into a jade blend as exquisitely beautiful as it is harshly bitter.

The guest of honor has the first taste. Taking the bowl, he salutes the host and then samples the preparation, complimenting the host on its quality. After two more precise sips, he wipes the lip with a napkin he has brought for that purpose, rotates the bowl, and pa.s.ses it to the next guest, who repeats the ritual. The last to drink must empty the bowl. Curiously enough, only the host is denied a taste of his handiwork. After the formal drinking of _koicha_, the bowl is rinsed and a second batch of tea is made--this time a thinner variety known as _usucha_. Although it is also whipped Sung-style, it is considerably lighter in consistency and taste.

After the second cup of tea, the formal part of the ceremony is completed, and the guests are at liberty to relax, enjoy sweets, and discuss Zen aesthetics. The focus of conversation is usually the tea bowl, which is pa.s.sed around for all to admire in detail. Comments on the flower arrangement are also in order, as is a bit of poetry appropriate to the season. What is not discussed--indeed, what no one wants to discuss--is the world outside the garden gate. Each guest is at one with himself, his place, and the natural setting. Values have been subtly guided into perspective, spirits purified, appreciation of beauty rewarded; for a fleeting moment the material world of dualities has become as insubstantial as a dream.

The tea ceremony is the great parable of Zen culture, which teaches by example that the material world is a tThef depriving us of our most valuable possessions--naturalness, simplicity, self-knowledge. But it is also much more; its underlying aesthetic principles are the foundation of latter-day Zen culture. It is a perfect blending of the three faces of Zen. First there are the physical art forms themselves: the tea ceremony deeply influenced architectural tastes, bringing into being the informal _sukiya_ style to replace the rigid _shoin _formulas of the _samurai _house; the art of flower arrangement, or Ikebana, owes much to the floral arrangements required for the ceremony; painting and calligraphy were influenced by the understated decorative requirements of the _tokonoma_ hanging scroll; lacquer ware developed in directions designed to complement the artistic principles of the ceremony utensils; and, finally, the growth of j.a.panese ceramic art from the fifteenth century onward was largely due to the particular aesthetic and practical needs of the tea ceremony.

The second face of Zen, tranquility in a troubled world, found its finest expression in _cha-no-yu_, which demonstrates as no sermon ever could the Zen approach to life.

The third face of Zen is that of aesthetics. By becoming a vehicle for the transmission of Zen aesthetic principles, _cha-no-yu _has preserved Zen culture for all times. It has given the people at large a standard of taste, guaranteeing that certain basic ideals of beauty will always be preserved against the ravages of mechanical civilization. And it is in this connection that we must examine the special features of the tea ceremony introduced by Hideyos.h.i.+'s tea master, Sen no Rikyu. To the ancient Zen ideas of _yugen _and _sabi _he brought the new concept of _wabi_.

_Yugen_, the realization of profundity through open-ended suggestion, found its finest expression in No poetry. _Sabi _grew out of the Heian admiration for lovely things on the verge of extinction. By the period this curious att.i.tude was extended to things already old, and so entered the idea of _sabi_, a term denoting objects agreeably mellowed with age. _Sabi_ also brought melancholy overtones of loneliness, of age left behind by time. New objects are a.s.sertive and striving for attention; old, worn objects have the quiet, peaceful air that exudes tranquility, dignity, and character. Although there is no word in a Western language precisely equivalent to _sabi_, the ideal is well understood. For example, we say that the sunburned face of a fisherman has more character than that of a beardless youth. But to the j.a.panese _sabi_ is first and foremost the essence of beauty, whether in a weathered house or temple, the frayed golden threads of fabric binding a Zen scroll, a withered bough placed in the _tokonoma_ alcove, or an ancient kettle rusty with time. The ideal of _sabi_, which became part of the Zen aesthetic canon of beauty, was perfectly at home in the tea ceremony, where even the utensils were deliberately chosen for their weathered look.

_Sabi_, however, seemed an incomplete ideal to Sen no Rikyu. The fact that rich objects are old does not make them less rich. _Sabi_ can still encompa.s.s sn.o.bbery. As tea master for both n.o.bunaga and Hideyos.h.i.+, Rikyu was so pained by their ostentation that he eventually revolutionized the tea ceremony and created a new aesthetic standard: _wabi_, a deliberate restraint, which is exemplified in his tea party of the single morning glory. _Wabi_, now a cornerstone of Zen aesthetic theory, is well described in a poem by Rikyu, which includes the lines:

_How much does a person lack himself,

Who feels the need to have so many things.

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In a sense, _wabi _is the glorification of artificial poverty, artificial because there must be the element of forced restraint and in genuine poverty there is nothing to restrain. The _wabi _tea ceremony permits no hint of wealth to be in evidence; those who enter the tea garden must leave their worldly status at the gate. Similarly, the _sukiya_-style teahouse must look like a rustic hut--not made out of something new, for that would destroy _sabi_, but not out of expensive antique woods, either. This ideal extends even to the floral arrangement, one or at most two buds; the clothes one wears, simple not dressy; the pots and cups, plain and undecorated.

_Wabi _purged the tea ceremony of all its lingering aristocratic qualities, bringing into being _cha-no-yu _as it is practiced today.

Today many j.a.panese, even those who practice neither tea drinking nor Zen, know and appreciate the ideals preserved in the ceremony. In recent years the concept of _wabi _has become the rallying point for those who regret the intrusions of the modern West into traditional j.a.panese culture, and _cha-no-yu _is valued as never before as a lesson in life's true values.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN