Rikyu's futaoki

We have been practicing with a variety of dogu this year in the intermediate classes.  I have a bronze set of the 7 futaoki supposedly favored by Rikyu. (Rikyu no nanashu no futaoki).  A futaoki is a kettle lid rest, and also can be used to rest the hishaku.  These are ways to handle and display the futaoki that I have been taught:

Kani futaoki -- crab lid-rest
The design of this lid-rest was adapted from the brush and sumi ink-stick rests of similar shape and size.  This futaoki is most appropriately used in spring and summer months.  The face of the crab determines the front and is used like any other futaoki by placing it on the tatami mat in line with angle of the hishaku.

Sazae futaoki -- turban shell lid-rest
An actual shell was used originally for this lid-rest, but was  replaced by ones made of metal and clay.  The front of the futaoki is determined by placing the pointed casing of the shell towards the fire.  It is placed in the kensui and used during temae with its underside up.  When displaying it on the tana, it is turned from right to left and placed with its underside down.

Hoyakoro futaoki - chalice shaped incense burner lid-rest
The design for this futaoki was borrowed from a lidded incense container used in Buddhist ceremonial rites.  It is used in both the ro and furo seasons when performing daisu or nagaita sokazari temae (the full display of utensils on the long board).  It is most frequently made of metal in either a five or six pointed cup design.  To determine the front, count the number of points and place one point in front if the number is odd, or two points front if the number is even.  The if this futaoki is closed when it is in the kensui, displayed the daisu or nagaita.  When it sis used it is handled like an old Japanese book -- opened from left to right and closed from right to left.  During koicha temae, the lid-rest is closed when it is not being used to support the kettle lid or hishaku.

Ikkanjin futaoki -- idle person lid-rest
This lid-rest is placed face forward, right side up in the kensui and on the tana and on its side when it is being used to support the lid and hishaku.  The boy at the well is thought of as idle, because he relaxes when he works and works when he rests.  Tu use this futaoki, pick up the hishaku with the left hand, removed the futaoki from the kensui with the right hand.  Replace the hishaku on the kensui, steady the futaoki on the left palm, turn on its side so that the boy's head will face the direction of the fire after it has been placed on the tatami.   Just the opposite of holding his feet to the fire.

 

 Mistuningyo futaoki -- three Chinese dolls lid-rest

The mitsuningyo futaoki probably pre-dates Rikyu as Chinese celedon examples have been found in Japanese collections.  This lid-rest may be used year-round. The doll dressed differently from the others is placed to the front.

Mitsuba futaoki -- trefoil lid-rest

This lid-rest resembles the edible trefoil plant and is used in the spring and summer months.  In the kensui and during temae, it is placed with the larger side up, with one single leaf to the far side.  To display it on the tana, it is turned over from right to left so that the larger side is down.

Gotoku futaoki -- (five virtues) trivet lid-rest

The gotoku futaoki is also called kakureiga (retreat) because the base is hidden in the ash.  It is used in the ro and furo seasons when the kettle is suspended (tsurigama), or rested on blocks (sukigigama), or directly on the brazier (kirikake buro).  It is placed in the kensui and used during temae with the circle side up and one leg to the far side.  At the end of the temae, it is turned over, right to left, and displayed with the circle down.

This is a good reference for the Rikyu no nanashu no futaoki, and I hope you all have a chance to use them in the future. 

Beginner's heart

One line of the kotoba reads: As we diligently learn the Way, we shall not forget the humble but eager heart of the beginner.  To many of us who have been studying the Way of tea for a number of years, it is easy to forget what it is like to be a beginner. It is easy to get jaded and consider that today, I will be doing just old hirademae.  I have done this dozens (or hundreds) of times and just go through the motions.  We forget what it is like to be a beginner.

I have a new class of beginners and they are eager and excited to come to class.  Nearly everything is new to them and somewhat intimidating. But their concentration is fierce.  They are paying attention to which foot is entering and leaving the tea room.  They are counting the number of weaves to sit in the proper place.  They listen hard when I am explaining something for the first time. They want to know the proper way to turn the bowl or which way their fan should be pointing. They are hungry for learning just about anything and everything. No matter how often I teach the beginner class, it is humbling to me that there is such enthusiasm for the Way of tea. 

When you are a beginning student, no job is beneath you.  Everything is important and you want to it properly.  Preparing your bowl to make tea is an important job.  Washing up and emptying the natsume is also an important job. For us experienced students, it is good to remember how eager we were to be included in planning a chakai, and even humble things like washing bowls, wiping tatami, and emptying the trash were important jobs.

This is why I like the gyakugatte temae.  It makes me feel like a beginner again. I have to concentrate on my footwork.  The utensils must be placed in different places and I have to remember the order and which hand goes where.  My heart beats fast, I make many mistakes, and it humbles me.  And yet, it brings back my eagerness for the Way of tea; to get it right and make the best tea I can for my guest.

How to Sharpen Pencils

Book review:  I have just finished reading a book titled, "How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, and Civil Servants," by David Rees.

This book classified in the humor section, but I read it with the seriousness of a technical manual.  I used to work in technical publications for a large electronic manufacturer.  The author, David Rees, talks about what to do with the shavings and how present the newly sharpened pencil. He also talks about the history of pencil sharpening, the origins of pencils and how pencils are made as well as the care and maintenance of your equipment. 

“Each action we take is an act of self-expression. We often think of large-scale or important deeds as being indications of our real selves, but even how we sharpen a pencil can reveal something about our feelings at that moment. Do we sharpen the pencil carefully or nervously so that it doesn’t break? Do we bother to pay attention to what we’re doing? How do we sharpen the same pencil when we’re angry or in a hurry? Is it the same as when we’re calm or unhurried?

Even the smallest movement discloses something about the person executing the action because it is the person who’s actually performing the deed. In other words, action doesn’t happen by itself, we make it happen, and in doing so we leave traces of ourselves on the activity. The mind and body are interrelated.”

― H.E. Davey, Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation.

If one observes closely, there a thousand ways to sharpen a pencil, just as there are a thousand ways to make tea. Different situations and different uses call for different types of sharpened pencils. Different occasions and different guests call for different types of temae.

Some people may consider the art of pencil sharpening as inane as the art of making tea. For those who take it seriously, though, it can be sublime and imbued with meaning.  It also illustrates that the attention to detail for something as mundane as sharpening a pencil or making tea can be totally satisfying.

Kagetsu Koshukai, Beginner's Perspective

Hello fellow Tea Lovers! It's Karla and I apologize for my long absence from the blog. I recently completed my Masters in Teaching and have been busy, busy, busy with school, student teaching and a continuing job search. Here is a lovely picture of what Oregon looks like when the sun is coming through the doug firs near my home. Lovely, no?

I wanted to post today about an experience I had last weekend at a beginning koshukai regarding kagetsu study. Christy Sensai from San Francisco was the Sensai there and gave all of us some great things to think about during the beginning usucha hirodemae temae. (Note: Please forgive me my beginner Japanese spelling. If you see errors, don't hesitate to let me know.) Christy Sensai said that one thing you should always strive for in kagetsu, and for any time you are in the tea room, is matching your timing to the other people in the room. I'm not talking about the host's timing in making tea, but the guest's timing. To put it another way, timing that guests may need to worry about would be bowing together, folding fukusa together, and standing and sitting together. These things should happen at the same time and it looks beautiful and effortless when executed that way. This timing shouldn't be found by craning your necks to the left and right. Just watch the movement from the corner of your eyes. This is something, Christy Sensai said, that a person who studies tea needs to apply to any part of the study of tea. It need not only apply to kagetsu. It means matching the height of your bows appropriately to the people around you. It means being conscious of when people's feet may be asleep so you don't try to stand up too quickly in courtesy to the people around you. It means that tea isn't just about yourself but it's about everyone in the room with you. You are all there to enjoy the experience the host is presenting you. No one should feel ashamed that they can not rise as quickly as the others. Tea is about acceptance and humility. About slowing down where needed and always showing respect to those around you. I was honored to be reminded of such an integral part of the way of tea.

Expert Tea Master

Someone referred to me recently as a tea master, and I was embarrassed enough to correct them by saying I was still a student of tea.  In truth I still feel like such a novice on this path; there is still so much to learn. 

They say that it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. By that definition, if you went to keiko for an hour and a half once a week, it would take a little more than 128 years for you to become an expert at chado, at least 2 lifetimes and perhaps more if you don't count formative years.

We could take a single aspect of the way of tea,  tea ceramics, for example, and say you spent 40 hours a week just immersed in it, it would still take you nearly 5 years to become an expert.  Yet you could spend 30 years studying tea ceramics and still not know all there was to know about it.  Take that and multiply it by the many other aspects of the way of tea: flower arranging, gardening, architecture, calligraphy, cooking, sweet making, literature, poetry, history, etiquette, kimono, wood working, lacquer, Zen, and those years add up very quickly.  Not to mention studying  the hundreds of tea procedures, tea utensils and types of  tea gatherings.

When people are first exposed to chanoyu, it seems so deceptively simple that anyone can do it.  What they don't know is that it has taken years of practice to make it look simple.  But even people just coming upon it can tell the difference between a beginner and a more experienced tea person.  Why is that?

I believe that watching an experienced tea person, you are not just seeing the procedure for making tea.  You are experiencing the heart of chanoyu.  The experienced practitioner imbues the temae with his or her heart and consideration for others.  When you and your body know the procedure by heart, you don't need to think about what comes next.  You can free your mind to concentrate on the guest.  There is no room for stage fright, or making mistakes.  The movements flow and awareness and feelings fill the room.  When the guest is experienced too, there is a magic that happens as host and guest become one.  Both are of the same mind and both contribute to creating an almost transcendent experience, often without a word being spoken.

This has happened to me just a few times in my years of study, when everything comes together.  I do hope that all tea students out there are willing to put in the hard work to be prepared for something like this.  Is it mastery?  I don't know.  It is the way of tea.

Trust the process

We have been doing several chanoyu presentations lately.  When students make tea in front of an audience, I am usually talking and explaining what is going on in the presentation.  Unlike in class, where I am sitting right there, correcting, encouraging and reminding students about the procedures, they are  on their own to do the temae.   Students call this making tea without a net  

It is scary to be out there without sensei to remind you what to do next if you forget.  Sometimes you make very stupid mistakes, and strange things happen in temae.  I never criticize students when they are presenting tea.  Instead, I ask them what did they learn.

Some students can do the temae perfectly in class, but in presentation or chakai, they forget everything completely.  They have an out of body experience.  Sometimes this is due to stage fright, performance anxiety or nervousness.   Sometimes it is doing it for people they don't know  -- or even just for people that they do know.

This is where your training comes in.  Trust that you and your body know what to do.  And if you make a mistake, you will know how to recover.

One student asked me after the last presentation, "How do you trust?"   That is a hard thing to answer.  You cannot tell someone to JUST "trust the process"  when they have no idea how to do it.  After thinking a while about this,  I expect everyone will have different answers to this question.  

For me, trust is a leap of faith.  Like mountain climbing, you have to let go of where you are and make a leap to some other place.  This is scary and risky. We want and need assurances that we will be okay when we land, we need to know we won't lose what we have when we let go.  We need to have control so we can feel safe.

So how do you make that leap of faith that is  trust?  You have to focus on what is on the other side.  How much do you want the outcome that you will risk letting go of where you are?  There has to be some greater value to take the risk otherwise why do it?  The secret is maintaining deep belief that your initiative will be rewarded.

When I went to study tea in Japan for a year, I didn't know anyone, I didn't speak the language, and I didn't know if I could endure the discipline of it.  I had to give up a business, a relationship and a home.  But I certainly wanted to go to Japan to study the heart of tea.  I wanted it so much that I trusted that I would be okay and that whatever the outcome, the experience of living tea in Japan would be worth it.

Are you ready to trust?

Charcoal heat vs. Electric Heat

There are pros and cons about using an electric burner while making tea. It's nice not having to worry about flying embers setting the tea room on fire, spilt water extinguishing your coals or carbon monoxide poisoning. It may be faster to adjust the temperature of the water with a twist of a nob. But in my humble opinion – in the age of the electric burner – tea practitioners are losing something unique to the experience of chado.

I say this because yesterday during class I made tea using live charcoal for the first time. I had no idea how different it was! The sound and behavior of the water in the kama is completely different. You have to be more attuned to the singing, like the particular pitch of the kama when the fire is dying down. This signals the guests that the chaji is almost completed. It's too bad it can be difficult to obtain and use charcoal outside of Japan. I think it really adds something to the overall aesthetic of the way of tea.

What differences have you observed in regards to charcoal heat vs. electric heat?

Chado in the real world

I love to enter the tea room, view the scroll and flowers and smell the incense.   The tea room is a safe place where the rules of etiquette ensure that everyone knows what is coming and how to conduct themselves. We are among people who share the ideals of wa, kei, sei and jaku.  This is the world of tea. 

And yet, there is this duality.   My life in tea, or my life when not doing tea.  Which is the real world?  Sometimes it feels like the tea room is more real than the rest of my life where I worry about finances, conflicts at work, my family, shopping and many other things.In the tea room, I am only concerned with making good tea, concern for my guests and doing my best. 

For many years, I had to drive across town after work to attend tea class.   Right in the middle of the most awful traffic is when I'd be on the freeway driving to sensei's house. Sometimes it took me more than two hours to get there and I dreaded making the trip.  By the time I got to class I was late, frustrated and distracted.  One night I noticed on my way home that every time I went to tea class, I was very happy driving home.  Most of the time, traffic was very light, but sometimes it was just as bad as when I went to class. It didn't matter, I was very happy driving home.  

Sensei says "Wa, kei, sei, jaku are easy in the tea room."  That is what she was training me in.  The hard part was taking wa, kei, sei, jaku with you when you left.  When we begin to take the way of tea seriously, something changes in our lives. We want to share the experience we have in the tea room with others.  I noticed in my own life how I began to clean up after myself, even though I had been rather a slob growing up.  I started to empty my house of things, talked softer and lost my temper less.   My husband said that tea had ceased to be a hobby with me and became a lifestyle.

The Urasenke Creed begins:

We are sincerely learning the essence of Chado and practice to put it into our daily lives. We continually reflect upon ourselves to attain this end.  In accepting a bowl of tea, we shall be grateful for the kindness of others and always mindful of mutual consideration.  We shall communicate the virtues of Chado through our own example:

1. We shall consider others first.
2. We are a family and Iemoto is our parent.  All who enter his gate to learn Chado are brothers.  As we are one in spirit, we shall respect all we meet.
3. As we advance along the Way of Tea, we shall always keep the spirit of the the beginner.
4. With a sincere and generous heart, we shall work together to cultivate ourselves to illuminate the world in which we live.

Patience, patience

I had a student ask me the other day, "Everyone is making mistakes and you correct everyone over and over again.  How can you be so patient?"  What is patience?  I mean, I was taking time and paying attention, is that what patience is?

How many times  have we told ourselves, "I need to be more patient"  Lots and lots of things require patience every day. With our jobs, our activities, our kids activities, friends, family, and daily living chores like laundry and grocery shopping, everything competes for our time and attention.  Some days it seems like we have barely time enough to breathe. Yet patience takes time, and in our lives we have precious little of that commodity.

In spite of all of our busy lives, we live a life of convenience.  My parents had only one car and my dad drove to work.  My mom took the bus to work. My grandparents had no car. Necessity makes one patient.  When you have little, it just takes more time to do things and so you must plan accordingly.  The expectation that things will happen in a certain time frame makes you impatient.  

With convenience comes the expectation that things will be easy.  When they are not, it makes you impatient.  When things don't go as you planned, it makes you impatient.  When people don't do as you want, it makes you impatient. When you are not as fast or as good as you thought you were, it makes you impatient. When you are not doing the things we want to do, it makes you impatient.

Clearly, there is a tide of things that contribute to our impatience, but not so much that pulls us to be more patient.  Patience is a virtue and we have to work very hard at it.  In the tea room is a place to put aside some of the expectations.  If we expect nothing, there is nothing to pull us to impatience.


Last week, I was listening to my granddaughter tell me about her day.  She was going on and on telling me every little detail --  "First I opened my eyes, then I got up and went downstairs in my jammies.  I decided to have cereal for breakfast so I got a bowl and then the Honey Nut cheerios, and a spoon.  I opened the refrigerator and got out the milk. Then I opened the milk...."  It went on and one like this for about 20 minutes.  But you know, I wasn't impatient.  I listened to her with love.  When I have loving thoughts about that little girl, I have all the patience I need. 

Sitting seiza for tea

One of the most difficult things about studying tea is sitting seiza.   As I am getting older, it is getting more difficult for me to sit for long periods of time.  I do tell my students that like any other physical activity (and sitting seiza is a physical activity) you must get in shape.

Sensei once told my husband when he first began to study tea, to sit in the bathtub at home.   He did, but it was so painful for him that he thought that sensei recommended it because it was almost a relief to sit on tatami after sitting on the cold porcelain!  What she forgot to tell him was to fill the bath with hot water so that it would relax the muscles and tendons and help buoy up his weight.

Seriously, sitting seiza does not come naturally to us.  I tell my students that they need to get into shape.  Sitting once a week will only get you so far.  It helps to sit a little bit every day and work up to longer and longer periods of sitting.  I have my laptop computer on the coffee table and sit seiza while working on computer for as long as I can before I rest, or I sit seiza while watching TV to keep in shape.  Breathing, and keeping your mind focused on your temae will also help.

Sometimes, sitting on the meditation seat helps, especially with the ankles. New students usually need a sitting aid such as this stool. One thing to be very sure of is if your feet and ankles are numb, please be very careful and not get up until you get the feeling back into your feet.  We have time, and a good first guest will be able to tell a story, or discuss some aspect of the tea room, or utensils to help distract the other guests while the host recovers feeling in his legs. You can purchase one of these seats from SweetPersimmon.com.  It comes in its own little carry bag that gives you a little extra padding, too.

Another thing that I have discovered that helps is acupuncture.  In fact, if you are in Portland, I recommend Working Class Acupuncture, because they charge a sliding scale $15-35 per visit.  Very affordable.  It is community acupuncture. They treat you in lounge chairs in one big room. You can stay for as long as you like.  You can find other community acupuncture clinics all over the U.S.

Besides the pain of sitting seiza, acupuncture will help with a lot of other things, too.

Imperfect beauty

Trying to understand the wabi aesthetic of the tea ceremony is very difficult because it is difficult to quantify.  One of the principles of wabi is "fukanzen no bi"  or imperfect beauty. 

Most people thnnk that there is a universal kind of beauty, but each person has a different sense of beauty -- depending on our culture, education, country and upbringing.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  For example, the line from the ocean to Mt. Fuji is beautiful, but a cloud obscuring part of the line is more interesting and beautiful to some people.

The usual concept of beauty is close to perfect. Bronzes and celedon ceramics from China were of perfectly symmetrical beauty where each side matched.  The tea masters in Japan thought that it was boring.  They looked to Korean rice bowls -- asymmetrical, earth toned, rough textured and thought them beautiful.   These bowls, with their imperfections were more human. That led Rikyu to create raku.   Raku bowls, because they are not turned on the wheel, are made to fit in the hand and it doesn't conduct heat well so the hot tea in it will not burn your hand. Raku means enjoyment, ease, pleasure or happiness.

Oribe and shino ware are very popular with tea students and potters.  But these are not my personal favorites because there is so much bad oribe and shino copies out there.  Oribe knew just how far to push the boundaries, while copies of his work often go beyond.  Students think that just because it is distorted, or rough it must be wabi and therefore beautiful. Purposeful distortions of the form, sloppy craftsmanship, or just plain ugly pieces abound.  Wabi is not slobby.

Tea students must be able to differentiate between forgiving imperfection, and celebrating imperfection. Celebrating imperfection leads to weird stuff for its own sake rather than looking at the individual strength of the piece and forgiving its imperfections because of its strengths.

Tea and Music

I had an excellent comment from a reader of the blog regarding the similarities of Chado and music.  It was brought more into focus for me this week when I had Gregg from Seattle visit Issoan Tea room.   Gregg is the chajin who gave the April Fool's chakai.  Gregg's partner is an accomplished  viola gamba musician and we had a long and interesting discussion comparing chado and music.

It started with the scroll, "ichigo ichie" that was hanging in the tea room as I made tea for them.  He said like chanoyu, every time you play a piece of music, it is different and that no two performances are exactly alike.  He also commented that sometimes while playing everything comes together in a natural flow without conscious effort, but to get there takes years of practice and playing with other people.

I was wondering if the analogy held up between tea and music.  Much of it does. The constant practice, the training, preparation, timing and working together with others, the striving to follow procedure, and allowance for creative expression within a rigid structure.

What about you?  Do you think the analogy between tea and music holds up?  In what ways?

Okeiko guidelines

As we change to the furo season it is always good to be reminded of okeiko guidelines.  Yes, I do remember going over these when I first started tea class, but  here they are again:

For every class:

• Remove shoes and put on white socks. Put your shoes away neatly in the shoe cupboard or line them up under the shoe bench.
• Store your bags and other things in the place provided.
• Use tsukubai or wash hands first. Bring your own handkerchief to wipe your hands.
• Always bring your fukusabasami with fukusa, fan, and kaishi.
• When entering the tea room, enter on your knees unless carrying something.
• Always look at the scroll and the flower arrangement when entering the tea room for the first time.
• Sit quietly until the sensei enters the room.
• All classes start and end with aisatsu

During class time:

• Always clean up after yourself. Wash your bowl, chakin, whisk, and put away. Help with clean up after class and to do the mizuya work, unless the mizuya cho dismisses you.
• The mizuya cho is in charge of the mizuya. You will follow instructions without argument. If there is a dispute, call a meeting with the cho after class.
• Watch senior students and learn from them; from temae to tea room behavior to clean up chores. If you don’t know how to do something, ASK.
• Never pass any tea utensils hand to hand. Put it down in front of the other person and let them pick it up.
• Don’t take notes in the tea room. Wait until after you leave the room to write anything down. Train your mind to remember.
• Wait until an appropriate time to ask questions. Distracting the teacher takes away from fellow students teaching and you would want the sensei’s attention on you for your lesson.
• No teaching commentary from the side. There is only one teacher in the room. Respect the sensei to teach what is necessary.
• Sitting seiza can be painful. Ask for a cushion, or stool. Changing position is helpful, but don’t make a production of it. Don’t get up and walk if your feet are numb.
• Try not to call too much attention to yourself in the tea room. The sensei notices everything.
• Working together is necessary for tea to work. Cooperation is valued.
• Read, research, look things up on your own. There is the library and books and the internet. You are in charge of your learning and it is not up to the teacher to make sure you progress.
• Everyone is your teacher. You can learn something from everybody.

Training in chado is hard and we must study and train diligently.  It is also a good reminder for me.

Mizuya Guidelines

When I left my sensei to begin teaching, she gave me a list of guidelines to help me set up my own school.  One of the most important was the mizuya (preparation room) guidelines:

In the preparation room silence is the rule. Idle chatter is distracting. Clean utensils immediately and maintain the mizuya in a state of readiness. Never leave personal items in the mizuya. At the end of class, ready utensils for the next day’s activities.

And Sensei says: the mizuya should be kept clean and orderly at all times. No excuses.
Often the preparation room is a small confined space that people need to share and work efficiently in.   The tea house in Seattle has a small, sit down mizuya that is only one mat (3 feet by six feet). If everyone is working together and efficient, then 3 people can work in this space and produce a hundred bowls of tea.

It is very tempting to hang out in the mizuya because that is where a lot of the action is before and after class.   But loiterers get in the way and working around someone who just chatting interrupts the work flow and is distracting.  I don't know how many times I have been kicked out of the mizuya by the cho (head of the mizuya) for chatting more than working. My sempai once told me that if he didn't see my hands working more than my mouth I was to take myself out until I could control myself. 

When I was the cho, I myself have kicked people out of the mizuya.  If you are not working, get out of the mizuya.  It is a place to work, not socialize.

If you first come to class and see that there are things to be cleaned, just do it.  It doesn't matter if you made the mess or if it someone else's responsibility.  If you see it, it is assumed that YOU are responsible.  Clean it up immediately.

After your lesson, you MUST clean up all of your utensils immediately after the aisatsu (thanking the sensei for the lesson).  Rinse your bowl and put away, clean your chasen, rinse all the tea off your chakin.  Clean the stickiness off any sweets tray, wipe the chashaku with a tissue, and refill the natsume for the next student.  Put away all of your utensils in their proper places.

When class is finished, everyone helps to clean up.  If there is no cho assigned, the most experienced student becomes the cho and must ensure that all of the cleaning is done properly, and utensils put in their proper place.  If there are less experienced students hanging about not knowing what to do, it is your responsibility to show them the proper way to clean, prepare and work in the mizuya.  Notice I said show them, not tell them.

" In the preparation room off the Totsutotsusai tea room at Urasenke in Kyoto there hangs a plaque in the hand of the thirteenth generation Grand Tea Master, Ennosai, listing the rules for the mizuya.  In addition to a chart showing the storage places for the utensils, there is written: 'This is a training ground for the tea room .  Recently it has not been kept in order and has become quite unsightly. I have drawn a chart; henceforth, people who finish practicing must place all utensils back where they found them.'  Precisely because the preparation room is not seen by the guests, it must be kept cleaner than the tea room itself." ~ from The Spririt of Tea by Sen Soshitsu XV.

The right way

"One learns by looking and studying.  Without understanding completely, one cannot criticize."  ~ from the 100 poems of Rikyu


We just had an intensive workshop here in Portland with Christy-sensei.  It is always inspiring and somewhat intimidating.   The format is one after another, students make tea for sensei and we often go from the very beginning procedures to the very highest in the space of about 3 days.  Or maybe in the reverse order, depending on the schedule. We all were studying our notes before she arrived, and sitting seiza at night watching TV to build up our strength for those 12 hour days sitting seiza.

We always have warigeiko, that is, back to the basics of folding the fukusa and purifying the utensils.  I always learn so much from this, even though I have been doing tea for many years.  Christy said that when the Gyotei came to San Francisco and he was teaching warigeiko, all he did was talk about posture.  Those finer points, points I knew and have forgotten, or have gotten sloppy at wore gone over and I retrained my body again.  Christy is so very good at giving honest feedback on form. That is also why tea cannot be learned from a book or by yourself with videos.   You need a teacher who can look at you and correct your form, placement, posture, and speed.  You need a teacher who will tell you to stop and take a breath.   A teacher will also tell you straighten your back or keep your focus on your non-working hand.

When I was in Japan, some teachers didn't teach as actively as teachers here in America.  One only watched you as you went through your temae and said not a word.  If you forgot or got lost, he just looked at you and it was up to you to struggle through to the end.  Another one would tell me that I was not doing it right, but did not tell me how to correct it, I had to figure it out. Boy those were some hard lessons, and yes, I do remember them much more vividly than if the teacher had just prompted and corrected me at the time.

I had a teacher who once said that the presence of the teacher is more important than the teaching itself. If  a student really wanted to learn the way of tea, they had to steal the knowledge.  By watching and paying attention was how one learned.

In America, sometimes students will question the teacher, especially if they have had other teachers in how to do a procedure. (or more recently saw something on video or Youtube)  My sempai taught me (rather severely) that whoever is teaching at the time is the right way to do it.   I have note books with notations (Christy sensei teaches this way, but Minako sensei teaches this way).  Even if the same teacher teaches something a little differently at a different time, it is still correct at the time the sensei is teaching.  

This is very hard for some people to grasp.  If there is a right way to do it, they want to know it and they want to know it will always be consistently right.   In Chado there is a right way to do things and we must learn it.  But there will always be some ambiguity in oral teaching and we must make the best of it as we can.  When we have the experience and understanding to judge, we can decide what is right for us.  Until then, the sensei teaching at the time is always right.   Just say "hai."

Senke Jusshoku, ten craft families

For generations, the Urasenke, Omotesenke and Mushakojisenke schools have been supported by ten craft families who have supplied them with tea utensils.  Each family has its own specialties that are passed down to the next generation just as the grand tea mastership is passed down in the Senke families.

The ten craft families number of generations serving and their specialties are:

1. Raku Kichizaemon 15th generation -  chawan shi, teabowls, mizusashi, flower vases, incense containers
   
2. Eiraku Zengoro 16th generation  - doburo yakimono shi, ceramics, including mizusashi, futaoki, ceramic furo, flower containers, tea bowls, incense containers, and futaoki
   
3. Onishi Seimon 16th generation- kamashi, kettles, gotoku (iron trivet), kensui, and other cast iron works
4. Nakagawa Joeki 11th generation - kanmono shi, bronze vases, kettles, ash spoons, trays, kensui, kan and hibashi
   
5. Nakamura Sotetsu 12th generation- nu shi, lacquer, especially gold painted design, natsume, trays, incense containers, bowls and sake cups
   
6. Hiki Ikkan 15th generation - ikkanbarisaiku shi, paper mache and lacquer over paper, for example inside of charcoal baskets, sweets trays, also feather work for haboki
7.  Kuroda Shogen 13th generation - takezaiku hishaku shi, bamboo anything, including hishaku, chashaku blanks, tana made of bamboo
8. Tsuchida Yuko 12th generation - fukuro shi, fabric for fukusa, kobukusa, and shifuku pouches
9. Komazawa Risai 15th generation -sashimono shi, wood worker for tana (display shelves), bentwood containers, hearth frames, screens, tabakobon
10. Okumura Kichibei 12th generation - hyogu shi, scroll mounting, fusuma (paper doors), furosaki byobu (screens), paper goods such as kettle hotpads, paper tobacco pouches

As we get further along in haiken, it is good to know these families and their specialties, in case your teacher in class or shokyaku should ask "who made it?" 

Back to the beginning

I have already written posts about going back to basics and back to one again, but for this week's lessons we are changing to the ro season and we are reviewing the very first things we learned in the tea room again. Every change of season we go back to the beginning in how to bow, how to enter the tea room, how to walk, turn, sit and stand and move about the tea room. We also review warigeiko: folding fukusa, purifying utensils, handling hishaku and most importantly the roles of the guest and host. This is a good time to correct bad habits that we have accumulated over the past season and straighten up sloppy handling of utensils.

Funny thing is that my students have taught me more about basics than I think I am teaching them. I have found quite often in teaching the way of tea that the lessons I am teaching are really not what the students are learning. Yes, this week's classes are about the technical aspects of learning tea, but what one of my students told me after class was that we should go back to basics in other parts of our life as well. We talked about being grateful and how it is very rare these days to receive a hand written thank you note, especially that people don't write in cursive handwriting anymore.

One of the things that another student talked about was that tea forces her to slow down. At first she was rather resentful in having to go back and re-do something she thought she already mastered. This led to a discussion of what mastery really means. Does folding your fukusa every week during your temae mean you have mastered it?

Even high ranking teachers with many years of experience, when they go to an intensive seminar, they start with the beginning of tea training: how to bow, how to walk, how to fold the fukusa and every time I have attended a tea training seminar, I realize just how sloppy I have become and how many bad habits that I have accumulated.

Also for me, going back to the beginning is really not back to the beginning but going back and learning the basics at a deeper level. It also connects me back to when I began as a tea student and was so very excited about learning the way of tea. I have at times become quite nonchalant about my tea studies, and it helps to recapture "the humble, but eager heart of the beginner" again.

Thoughts on gomei, or poetic names

Students who practice Chanoyu are asked by their teachers to think of gomei or poetic names for tea utensils. Many students think it is a chore or silly to come up with names for your chashaku every week. But during the haiken, or the appreciation part of the ceremony, the gomei can heighten the drama, tell the story of the utensil or enhance the theme of the tea gathering.

Gomei, literally, most honoured name, are given to utensils, sweets, and other things related to Tea. Originally, names were given to various objects by great connoisseurs and Tea masters in the late Higashiyama period. Kobori Enshu gave many famous tea utensils gomei taken from poetry and literature.

Tea utensils may reflect nature by echoing particular seasons both in form and with their poetic names. In observing the seasons, there are many more than the basic 4: spring, summer, fall, and winter. For example, early spring is more like winter and late spring is more like summer. Flowers are a great indication of the season as they don't appear at once, but can evoke the time of year that they bloom. So noticing what particular flowers are in bloom are a good source of gomei. Also instead of just naming a flower, a good gomei may offer a description of the flower. For example, Kiku or chrysanthemum is a good autumn flower, but to use kiku as a gomei is a little general and not very poetic. If it is late November, the chrysanthemums are getting a little tired as their blooming season is coming to an end. So "rangiku" or ragged chrysanthemum might be a gomei for that season.

Gomei can also come from place names that evoke different feelings, seasons or memories. For example, the gomei "Tatsuta" refers to the Tatsuta river in Nara prefecture. In the fall this river fills with fallen red maple leaves and thus alludes to the momiji or red maple leaves of autmn. Likewise, Yoshino is a place where the hill sides bloom with cherry blossoms in the spring. With these place names, one can allude to the seasons without directly saying "cherry blossoms." It gives a little more sophisticaton, depth and feeling to the name.

For usucha and okashi (sweets) gomei can be very seasonal and light; sometimes they can be humorous, or emotional such as "chajo chashin" tea feeling, tea heart. When we get to koicha, however, the gomei are a little more serious. Many Zen words and phrases are used as gomei. For example, I have a scroll with a Zen phrase that says: White clouds come and go as they please. I might pair this scroll with a tea scoop name "Ao yama" or green mountain because the companion phrase to this is: Green mountain is unmovable.

Japanese literature is also a rich source of gomei. An example of this might be "Murasame" literally it means autumn rain. Murasame was also one of two sisters in the in the Noh play Matsukaze. The two main characters are the sisters Matsukaze and Murasame who once lived on the Bay of Suma in Settsu Province where they ladled brine in order to make salt. A Middle Counsellor named Yukihira dallied with them while staying at Suma for three years. Shortly after his departure, word of his death came and they died of grief. They linger on as spirits or ghosts, attached to the mortal world by their sinful emotional attachment to mortal desires. The name of the chief character, and title of the play, Matsukaze, bears a poetic double meaning. Though Matsu can mean "pine tree" (松), it can also mean "to wait" or "to pine" (待つ). Autumn Rain is strong and gentle intermittently, while the Wind in the Pines is soft and constant. Though the characters in the play actually represent the opposite traits - Matsukaze alternating between strong emotional outburts and gentle quietness while her sister remains largely in the background, and acts as a mediating influence upon Matsukaze. Many layers of meaning here: Autumn, love, tears, grief, desire, strong, gentle depending on how it is used.

So please think about your gomei for keiko next week and use your imagination and some of these suggestions. It will make your temae more interesting to both your teacher and your guests.

Mizuya work

At the Friends in Tea conference, the tea space was improvised, so there was no mizuya to prepare for chakai. Thanks to our resourceful mizuya cho, Jan, she set up a temporary space upstairs near the tatami mats to make a working mizuya. I especially appreciated the fact that the mizuya was set up even though there was no running water or drain nearby. She did this by setting up tubs and buckets for clean and dirty water. These buckets and tubs had to be filled and emptied by hand. This was also a good reminder to be careful to conserve the clean water, and efficient in cleaning up so that the dirty tubs didn't fill up quickly and have to be emptied in the middle of a chakai.

With so many great utensils brought by the participants the cho had to double the mizuya space by setting up tables. Even though she did that, it still was tight to work there given that two chakai were scheduled at the same time. Part of tea training is to work efficiently and quietly in the mizuya.

Most mizuya that I have worked in are tiny spaces -- 1 to 3 tatami mats. That is 3 feet by 6 feet up to 6 feet by 9 feet. It begins to get really crowded in there when 3 or 4 people are all working to get things ready, or clean up from a previous chakai or lesson.

This is where training comes in. If you are not working in the mizuya, get out. The mizuya is no place for standing around and chatting. If you are working, do what you need to do quickly and efficiently and get out. Do not dawdle around or stay to look at things. Make sure your things are cleaned up properly and everything is put back in the proper place. If there is a kama with hot water coming, get up and out of the way. Most important, the cho is the head of the mizuya. You must do what the cho says without argument. There may be a meeting later about it, but at the time, the cho is in charge and what he/she says must be done immediately and without complaint. It is a big responsibility.

*Photo courtesy of Morgan Beard

Return to the original one again

keiko to wa ichi yori narai ju wo shiri ju yori keru moto no sono ichi

In training for chanoyu, you go from one to ten and return to the original one again.

This is from one of Rikyu’s 100 poems. Next week we will close the ro and begin the summer season for chanoyu. Before we begin the furo season, all the classes will review the basics again. We will learn how to walk in the tea room, how and when to bow. We will review folding the fukusa and purify the tea utensils and correct bad habits that we have acquired along the way.

When I went to Japan to study tea, even though I had 15 years of tea training, they began teaching us how to walk and bow. The sensei assumed you knew nothing and started everyone at the beginning, no matter how long you had studied. One sensei said that I had accumulated many bad habits and I needed to go back to the beginning. At first I was rather put out by what I thought was wasting time, until I found out that at every koshukai (intensive training workshop), they taught the basics to everyone, even teachers of more than 20 years’ experience. They call this warigeiko.

Even though we go back to the beginning, it really is not the beginning because we have some experience of what it is like to study. I like to think of it as a spiral. Each time you come back to the beginning, you go deeper and learn more about yourself, your temae and your relationships. Just like the seasons come around again, it is different every year. This spring is not like last spring, nor the spring before that.

So next week, bring your fukusa basami, chakin, chasen, chashaku. Be prepared for warigeiko, back to the orginial one again.