Apr 3, 2010

Knowing contentment

The essence of Tea is knowing contentment. The Way of Tea is a means of knowing satisfaction with each and every thing.  If one knows contentment, when making tea, the less things there are, the greater the pleasure.  The more one knows about things and people, the more human one is. With this idea, even having insufficient utensils, one can delight in making tea.  Chanoyu  is the way which teaches contentment. It is just this contentment that is Rikyu's true intent.

~ Matsudaira Fumai (1751-1818) in the Tawagoto written when he was 20 years old.

4 comments:

  1. Lovely, and I thought it was a modern quote!

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  2. Steph,
    Thank you for your comment. Matsudaira Fumai was quite the Japanese Renaissance man, even from a young age.

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  3. Lovely. Thank you for such liberating wisdom. ~ Toki

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  4. toki, welcome back and thank you for your comment.

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