Sensei says. . .

Wa, kei, sei, jaku: harmony, respect, purity
and tranquility

Many of these sayings have appeared in the blog before, and students will recognize many of them from my own teachings. I have gathered them together to best of my recollection.  I hope you can add your own "sensei says" in the comments.

The term “sensei” has been translated as “teacher.” Quite literally from the kanji, the term “sensei” means “one who was born before.”  If there is great wisdom, it is gained through life experience and wisdom imparted by their “sensei” born before them, going back through 400 years of Tea tradition.

My apologies to sensei for any mistakes due to the differences in Japanese and American culture and language. I am glad that someone was born before me to point the way. These words of wisdom, were spoken to me in class rooms and tea practice rooms by sensei who cared enough to help me develop in Tea and in life.

On life and Tea:

Wa, kei, sei, and jaku are easy in the tea room.  The hard part is making it essential in the rest of your life.
Tea becomes much more than a hobby or social event.  It becomes a lifestyle.
Tea becomes the yardstick with which you measure your life.
The attitude of gratitude is essential.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. Complete this moment before going on to the next.
Don’t expect, just adjust.
Tea is where you realize your own religious beliefs.
What makes us uncomfortable makes us stronger.
People who endure hardship in life become tougher, like misshapen charcoal, they last longer than those with an easy life who burn out quickly.
Tea is movement.  It gets us out of our heads, into our bodies, so we can touch our souls.

On learning:

You can not learn Tea by reading a book. You learn Tea by training your body and to do it well, you must do it at least a thousand times.
Every time you do Tea, you learn something about yourself, even though you may have done it many, many times before.
Tea is not a thing to learn from teachers. The things you seek are already within you.
The existence of the teacher is more important than what he/she says, does or writes.
Learn with more than your brain. Observe, train your body, ask your spirit and relate to your guest.
Before you ask your teacher a question, look and observe.  Try to figure it out on your own. You learn so much more that way.

On making mistakes:

You can do nothing right in class, but in chaji (formal tea gathering)you can do nothing wrong.
If you are going to make a mistake, make it beautifully.
There is no going back, just move forward.
There is no such thing as the perfect temae (procedure for making tea). Doing it perfectly is not the heart of Tea. Doing it as if it was the first time, finding interest and excitement like finding interst in your life, to avoid being jaded, that is the true heart of Tea.
The Tea room is a place where we abandon shame. Do not be afraid to make mistakes if you want to learn.

On form:

When you have mastered the forms, then you become free from the forms.
Learn the kata (form).  When you know it thoroughly it becomes your katachi (style).
The body learns the form: it learns the discipline until it goes beyond the rules and becomes natural.
First master the form. The form is a vessel for the content.  You need a strong vessel to hold what goes inside or it leaks away.

On training:

Awareness is not concentration.  Tea is training in awareness
Tea training also teaches us how to receive.
Every time you make a bowl of Tea, it is not practice Tea it is the real Tea.
In training for Tea heart and spirit, as you gain maturity, learning and knowledge, the rules and guidelines change into a total experience of life.
The most difficult training is not temae, but to watch your mind and your behavior when you encounter nasty tasks and people.
Every difficulty you encounter is good training for you.

On doing the work:

Do the work. Tea is not for the lazy.
There are no trivial tasks in Tea.
There are no shortcuts in Tea.
Cleaning is 80% of Tea.
No matter how accomplished you get to be in Tea, cleaning the toilet is always the host’s job.
The mizuya (preparation room)should be clean enough to eat off the floor.
The mizuya (preparation) work should be done as if it is temae (tea making procedure).
It is your own responsibility to get to the heart of Tea.
With Tea, we are sitting on a mountain of jewels, but you must do the work and dig them out yourself.
You should do everything right because it is the right thing to do.

Sensei Says

The student says, "I am very discouraged about my tea study.  What should I do?"

Sensei says, "Encourage others."

Movement within the tea room

One of the things Machida Gyotei sensei taught us about movement within the tea room is that when you are wearing kimono, only your feet are showing, so you want to make sure that you are walking, turning, sitting and standing in a way that doesn't look awkward and call additional attention to your feet.  Here are some of the points he emphasized:

1. Walk in the center of the tatami
2. Don't drag your feet, but lightly skim the tatami to make a slight swish when you walk
3. You should walk in the tea room as if you were trying not to kick up dust
4. When sitting down, make sure your toes and heels are together
5. Likewise when you are standing up, make sure your heels are together so people behind you can't see all the way up your kimono.
6. Stand up as if a string was pulling on your head straight up
7. When turning from the temaeza, move your heel back at 45 degrees but don't separate your feet too much
8. Sit in front of your guest to serve sweets
9. Move slightly to the side before standing up in front of someone.  Slide straight back with one foot before turning away

One of the reasons we don't step on the black lines separating tatami mats is because in olden times, tatami did not cover the entire floor.  Only nobles sat on tatami.  So there was a change in elevation between the tatami and floor.  If you stepped on the black line, your foot would be partly on tatami and partly on the floor, very awkward.

Most of the movement within the tea room makes sense, and as Machida Gyotei sensei says, "try your best to follow these guidelines, but it won't be the end of the world if you miss something."  

The hunger for knowledge

One of the things that is a little frustrating to me is that I do not speak Japanese, nor do I read.  I have a number of books in my collection about Chanoyu that are written in Japanese and I hunger to read and get the information from them. All that knowledge and I can't get to it.

But I have not yet learned Japanese and so the frustration I am feeling is of my own making. If it was really important to me to read these books, I'd be learning Japanese and hauling out my dictionary to help me understand what is written in them.  

So many times we get frustrated with life, and rail against all the things stopping us from getting what we want. When in reality, like my frustration with reading and learning more about Chanoyu, it is a frustration of my own making.  I have been studying tea for 30 years and I could be very fluent in Japanese and reading and translating these texts if I had been studying the language for 30 years as well.  Sensei says, "If it is really important to you, you will know what to do and how to get what you want."

For those of you, like me, who do not speak or read Japanese, I have compiled a reading list to get you started in English.  Want to know more?  I suppose you could learn to speak and read Japanese.

In memory of Minako sensei

It has been seven years since Minako Somi Frady passed away, and today we remember her with a chakai at the Portland Japanese Garden.  She was my sensei for more than 20 years and we all miss her terribly.   In many ways it doesn't seem like very long, and in other ways it seems like she has been gone forever.   Since I started teaching, I long to have conversations with her regarding students, teaching methods, and just some philosophical discussions regarding real life and tea.

Many of her sayings have been passed down to my students and indeed, they have appeared on the blog.  For example:
"In class, you can do nothing right.  I will correct everything.  In chaji you can do nothing wrong."
"The mizuya should be clean enough to eat off the floor."
“If you are going to make a mistake, make it beautifully.”
"Chado is 80% cleaning."

When I asked a question in class, often her answer would be:
"If I give you the answer, you won't remember it."  And it has been so true. Easy answers are forgotten quickly.  While the hard won answers that took cogitation, endurance, sweat and mistakes are the ones that stick with me.

Thank you Minako sensei for teaching me.  Thank you for putting up with my ignorant, rude behavior as a beginning tea student.  Thank you for being so strict with me and teaching me the traditional way.  Thank you for the love and care you gave me through more than 20 years of tea studies. Thank you for believing in me.  Thank you for letting me go.

And I'll always remember::   "There are no short cuts."

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.

Prizes, prizes, prizes

This post will be the 300th post on the SweetPersimmon blog.  Thank you all for reading, following and commenting.   I love to hear from readers and I know there are many out there lurking.  So in honor of this milestone, I am running a contest --- With prizes!


Third prize is a CD of spoken word haiku "The Haiku Year," by yours truly.  A recording of haiku written over the course of a year, one every single day.  Yes, I'll include a written copy too.

Second prize is a copy of the book "Tea Here Now" by Donna Fellman and Lhasha Tizer.  Donna studied tea with me in Seattle and  is the director of Tea Education Alliance and owner of Bodhidarma Tea Company in Louisville, Colorado.
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First prize is a red raku teabowl.  This bowl was made by Tad Kamiya, an American potter.  There is a kiln crack in the rim, but it was repaired with gold and is a lovely.pinkish color.  Measurements are 120mm wide by 85mm tall.(that is 4 3/4" wide by 3 1/2" tall for us Americans). See photos below.

And now the criteria for the contest.   It's easy. It's all about mistakes.We all make them.  We are all embarrassed by them. It's not about perfection.  Minako sensei said, "If you are going to make a mistake, make it beautifully."   In the comments section of this post tell me about the worst tea mistake you ever made.  The juicicer the better.  So entertain us.  Tell us how you made the most beautiful of mistakes. Making them in public gets you extra points.  Prizes will be awarded by me as sole judge.

The contest will remain open until July 10.  Winners will be announced on the blog.  If you are chosen, please contact me with your shipping information.  I do ship internationally.

So I will start off with one of my favorite mistakes:   I was at a chakai in Kyoto, one with hundreds of guests.  It was at Yasaka shrine in the Gion in a large room, about 100 tatami mats.  It was one of the first chakai I attended in Japan.  There were about 100 little old tea ladies all lined up around the perimeter of the room, and I spoke not a word of Japanese.  We were pretty far away from where they were making tea, but they started serving the sweets from the kitchen. It was one of my favorites-- melt in your mouth senbei with a very pretty design on it.  After I passed the sweets tray I picked up my kaishi and the sweet dropped off of it and rolled onto the tatami.  And rolled, and rolled and rolled.  It kept rolling until it reached nearly the middle of the huge room and then it made a circle and took forever to settle down.  There was total silence as everyone watched the path of the runaway sweet.  Of course everyone was craning their necks to see whose sweet was that in the middle of the room.  I also was looking this way and that pretending that it was not my sweet.  Luckily one of the ladies serving tea from the mizuya stopped and picked it up on her way back to the kitchen.

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 heart of tea

Rikyu says:
The very heart which wants to enter the Way is the best teacher.

Sensei says:
Beginning teachers want to teach the heart of tea and lecture about it.  This is virtually impossible to do.  Don't get trapped into a romantic notion of tea .  You cannot define it for others.  Temae teaches the heart of tea itself. It is in the movement we discover ourselves.  You can't think your way there, you must use your body.

I sometimes have beginning students who are adverse to doing temae over and over again.   They think that if they have seen it a couple of times and done one or two, that they have learned it and want to go on to the next thing.  The thing is that they cannot remember the order of it unless I prompt them.  If they had to do it on their own, they would be lost. 

Recently a few of my students assisted me in a presentation of Chanoyu.  I was doing the explanation and one student was guest and the other host.   It was one of the first times that they both had to do everything on their own, and they learned so much by doing it without me to help them.   One student said it was like doing tea without a net -- scary and exhilarating at the same time. But they both said that they learned so much from just doing it.  

Some people say that tea is moving meditation.  If you can make tea according to the procedures without getting bored or sloppy and still remain aware of your surroundings and your guests, then you will have found the heart of tea.

Dream Window

For the introduction to chado class, we viewed a video the other night called, "Dream Window, Reflections on the Japanese Garden . If you haven't had a chance to see this, please do so.  It shows a number of famous gardens with commentary by various artists, a composer, stage designer, ikebana master, poet, zen monk about how the Japanese garden has influenced each of their respective arts. It is beautifully filmed and thought provoking. 

And what discussion of Japanese gardens would be complete without talking about the tea garden and Japanese tea ceremony?   In this video, they show  part of a chakai, and one of the guests was one of my sensei when I studied in Japan, Ebina-sensei.   Sadly, she passed away more than 7 years ago, but I still have many of the notes from her teaching and lectures.  She introduced me to Japanese poetry and literature.  She was always elegant and very caring of us.

In the last lecture, Ebina-sensei said to us:

Fundamentally, who you are when you are doing tea is your true self.  Through this, you may begin to understand what is important.

Everyone needs to ask, what does tea mean to me?  If you find some meaning in tea, by all means continue.  If you find it is not for you, why pursue something that is meaningless?

We all have a different relation with tea.  Our lives change with time and tea will change with your life. Doing tea is a philosophy of life.  This study is a study of culture not just tea.  Tea is part of bigger picture of life.

It all depends on the tightness or narrowness of your heart.  The more open you are the more room in your heart.  Grounded with your heart you will see more things, and it will make you more blind to the bad conditions.  Following your heart is a plus factor to be able to see the positive.  And don't forget to listen, listen, listen...

The microcosm of the tea room

Sensei says: How you are in the tea room is how you are in the world.

Haji o sute hito ni mono toi naraubeshi kore zojozu no motoi narikeru
A person must discard all embarrassment when training in tea, this is the foundation of mastery.
~ from Rikyu's 100 poems

Every time we step into the tea room, it is a microcosm of how we are in the world.

As I observe myself in the tea room, am I impatient, bored, eager, timid, attentive? Am I selfish, critical, generous? Do I treat others with respect? Do I show off? Try to compete? Question others? How do I treat correction and criticism? How do I handle mistakes?

"In a certain place for practice of the way of tea,
there hangs a plaque the reads:
'A Place Making a Shameful Show of Oneself.'
Once you pass through the entrance way,
you will experience no shame,
no matter how shameful a show you may make of yourself.
The practice room is where you are trained as a human,
even as you are sharply scolded
and hesitate to humiliate yourself in the process.
The principal aim of your training is to enable you,
when the time comes,
to perform tea splendidly and without shame.
This is the reason why all those who pass through the entrance way
of this place are prepared to endure severe discipline.
For it is in this way that
they gradually develop fine characters as people.
They cannot achieve this simply by reading books
and listening to others.
They must experience it with their own bodies."

~ Sen Soshitsu XV, The Spirit of Tea

It's not about the numbers

When Christy-sensei was here for koshukai (intensive workshop) she mentioned that Chado is not about the numbers. Which led me to think about numbers in my study of tea.

When we find our place and sit in the tea room, we are told to sit 16 weaves of the tatami from the black edge; turn the bowl two times; place the natsume at 5 weaves from the corner.

All of these instructions help us to locate and orient ourselves in the tea room. But what Christy-sensei was teaching was that we should not get too attached to these numbers. It is a paradox that turning the bowl two times is not as precise as saying, turn the the bowl so that you are drinking out of the back or turn the bowl so that the front is facing you.

The 16 weaves back from the black edge of the tatami is difficult to do if your legs are two long and you come up against the wall. You must make sure that you have enough room in front of you to set the tea bowl down and bow formally when receiving tea.

I have had sensei who didn't teach from the numbers. She would show me the precise place to put something, or tell me that I was a little bit off when I placed it -- move it to the left or move it closer to you. When I asked how many cm from the edge or how many tatami weaves, she would respond, she would tell me to look at where she showed me and to train myself to see and remember the placement.

So when putting the whisk and natsume down, sensei said to make them like a married couple, close, but not too close.

Questions, questions

When I first began to study tea, I had a million questions and I asked them all the time of my sensei. Often she would not answer my questions and I thought that it was because her English was not so good. But that didn’t stop me from asking questions or asking them repeatedly. I was there to learn and I thought that asking questions was the best way for me to do that. It showed sensei that I was active, engaged and participating. Quite often, sensei would answer my questions with responses like, “You already know the answer,” or “Because it has been decided,” or “If I give you the answer, you will not remember.” None of which were appropriate answers as far as I was concerned.

It wasn’t until I went to Japan to study that I realized that what I was doing was very disruptive and quite disrespectful of my sensei. Although there are no inappropriate questions, there were definitely inappropriate times to ask them.

I take that back. There are inappropriate questions – those questions that are asked to show off what you know and questions that are meant to embarrass the teacher. Questions asked sincerely are appropriate, and only the student can regulate these questions.

As for inappropriate times to ask questions, it is bad form to ask questions when the teacher is actively teaching another student and there by taking attention away from another student’s learning. It is inappropiate to ask questions that will sidetrack the teacher from what is being currently being presented. It is better to wait until the teacher asks if there are any questions. If the questions only engage one student in a back and forth that leaves out the rest of the class it is better to take it off line and ask the teacher outside of class.

Just because you ask a question, doesn’t mean that you will receive an answer that you like. The learning style of question and answer is only one form of learning. As I learned from my sensei, “Because it has been decided,” is a perfectly good answer. This teaches us that there are things we accept now without understanding it may lead to a deeper understanding later. A hard concept for our culture, I know.

The response of “If I give you the answer, you will not remember,” teaches us that not everything is given to us. We must work hard to come by knowledge. By trying to work out an answer or researching it, trains you to think for yourself and seek out the answer by yourself.

If there are any questions, I’ll try to answer them in the comments.

Who is the best teacher?

Sono michi ni iran to omou kokoro koso waga mi nagara no shisho nari keri

“The very heart which decides to enter the Way is the best teacher.”

Rikyu left us with 100 poems to study the way of tea. This was the first poem of Rikyu’s that I learned. Some people look and look for the best teacher. They look at credentials, they look a personality and teaching style, one that suits their learning style and makes them feel comfortable. I didn’t know that you could choose your teacher. I thought that whatever teacher you found or found you, that was the way it was supposed to be.

When I went to Japan, Mori sensei, one of the teachers at Urasenke, read us this poem and told us that we, in fact were our own best teachers. She said there is nothing to teach us. All we can do is point to the moon. To learn chanoyu, you must seek for yourself. If you have a strong will, you will learn.

I have had students who wanted me to make them tea masters just for showing up at class and argued with me about the “right” way to teach them. I have had students who are so eager to learn that they research and practice on their own. I find that students will only learn as much as they want, no matter how I strive as a teacher. The student must be motivated to learn on his own, have the discipline to work through the tough parts of the learning and desire to become better and know more.

Literally translated, sensei means “one who one who has gone before.” My sensei said to me, “When I am teaching you, I will show you what I know.”

Self discipline and tea studies

One of the great lessons that I learned during my 25 years of tea studies is the importance of self-discipline. I think it is one of those grown up values that don’t seem to be emphasized much anymore. I used to think of self-discipline as punishment; feeling guilty for not doing the things I should be doing and denying myself the pleasures of life.

When it came to tea studies in the beginning, I was not a particularly good student. I wouldn’t practice between classes, my sensei would scold me during class for my wandering mind, I would be late for class and I would always be asking questions even when sensei just finished explaining the very thing I was asking (I was not paying attention). As a consequence, I didn’t progress very far.

Sensei said to me one day, that it didn’t matter to her whether I progressed or not. I was paying her to teach me, but I had to meet her half-way in my learning. It wasn’t until I was clear that I wanted to study tea, that I became focused on what I was doing every week. I began to think about class after I went home and before the next one. I became diligent about choosing a poetic name for my chashaku every week. The funny thing was that when I became a better student, sensei was much more strict with me. I had to work even harder than when I was a lazy student.

When I went to Japan, one of my sensei there told us that we were sitting on a mountain of jewels, but we’d have to dig them out ourselves. It was not the teacher’s job to see that I had a good experience for the year we were there. This was the hard lesson for me. When I rebelled or was lazy or didn’t do what I was supposed to do or be where I was supposed to be, it just got harder for me. When I applied myself, all kinds of special things came my way. They were training me.

There were some students who were very good at looking good. They would appear to be busy while sensei was looking, and then do nothing if he wasn’t. For the first half year, I would often complain to one of my sempai about things that upset me or that I thought were unfair. She would nod her head wisely at all of my complaints and say, “Yes, it is good training for you.” When I could control my reactions to other people or what was going around me, I had a much better experience. I knew what I had to do and just doing it became satisfaction enough.

Sensei says, “Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.”

The Physicality of Tea Practice

For those who study martial arts or are involved in sports, tea practice looks like it is sedentary, not a physical activity. After all, it is done sitting on tatami and it is quiet and calm. But there is a physicality to tea practice that is sometimes much more difficult than that of moving your body vigorously.

Tea practice is about control. To be able to move slowly, precisely and gracefully takes long practice. To be able to make it look effortless and easy takes even more practice. To know where your body will end up when you sit down takes practice. To put utensils down in the proper place (a centimeter off is in the wrong place), takes experience to know where in relation to your body it should go.

Most excruciating of all is being able to make tea and drink tea while sitting in seiza. Being uncomfortable and still be able to do what you need to do with your whole attention and awareness is mostly mental. But physical endurance is also important. It takes training to work up to sitting for hours on tatami in seiza, but if you sit for a little bit each day and gradually increase your time sitting, your body will adjust. The thing is to stick with it long enough to build up your endurance.

It is funny when sensei tells tea students that it is time to take a break, so everyone should stand up to rest. Only in the tea room.

This moment is complete

Sensei said, “complete this moment before moving on to the next,” What did she mean when she said that? How long is a moment, and how do you know when it is complete?

I often live in my head rather than in the world. By that, I mean that I have an active imagination and I am always thinking about what comes next and what will happen and what will I do if this or that happens. While I am day dreaming or imagining disaster or concocting fantasies in my head or planning out my next move, I miss what is actually going on around me. I am famous for saying to other people, “what just happened?” or “what did I miss?” My husband gets exasperated with me. “Don’t you know? You were here, where did you go?”

For me the challenge is to stay in the world rather than retreat into my head. When they tell me to stay present, I am most often staying future. Some people have trouble because they are staying past and always thinking regrets or would have, should have or could have.

So I think completing this moment is staying in the world, to simply notice where I am and what is going on around me rather than what is going inside my head and imagining or fantasizing what I think is going on or want to go on or should be going on. Tea study helps me stay out of my head because all I have to worry about is what I am doing right now. It focuses me on what my body and hands are doing.

Sensei also said, “Tea practice gets us out of our heads and into our bodies so that we can touch our souls.”

It’s not about perfection

Students often think that having the perfect temae is the goal of tea study. Though we strive for perfection in temae, that really is not what tea study is about. I wrote previously about hataraki, making adjustments and moving forward. Making mistakes are other opportunities for learning and growing.

Sensei often said that in class, you can to nothing right, but in chaji you can do nothing wrong. She would correct every little thing in class. And I would rather make my mistakes in class and be corrected, than to be in a formal tea gathering and make my mistakes.

Just about the time I thought I could get through a tea procedure without making any mistakes, sensei would mention things for me to pay attention to or ask questions while I was making tea, such as what is your left hand doing? Or explain to me the significance of of the guest role. And she would tell me to keep going to make tea while thinking, talking and answering her questions. Quite often, I would have a brain freeze and not be able to talk, nor could I continue making tea, nor could I remember where I was in the procedure or what came next. (I am quite easily distracted and have a hard time even walking and talking at the same time).

What sensei was doing was training me to be more aware of everything, to hold more than one thing in my head, and to trust my body. She was also training me to hold onto my concentration on what I was doing, to move forward when there were distractions and to be able to converse with guests without stopping the procedure and getting my work done. The trick in chanoyu is to make everything look natural, easy and uncomplicated, even though there is a lot going on.

Sensei also said, “If you are going to make a mistake, make it beautifully.”

There are no shortcuts

When I first began to learn about Chado, I thought I could become a tea master in ten lessons. But I found out in those first ten lessons just how much there was to the ceremony, not just making tea. I still did not understand what a lifetime of study meant, but it was intriguing enough for me to continue.

My sensei drilled into all of our heads that in tea, there are no shortcuts. We thought that what she said pertained to the temae (tea procedures) that we were studying. There are no shortcuts in tea procedures because through 400 years of refinement, the moves have been honed to the best and most efficient and most graceful way of making powdered matcha tea. If you shortcut one part of the procedure, often you will come to a place that you cannot move forward without backtracking, kind of like knowing the way into and out of the maze. I have learned to follow the exact procedures because I have gotten myself stuck and didn’t know how I could get myself out of it again. And each more advanced procedure is based on the one preceding it, so you cannot skip up to a higher level because you will not have learned something essential to the next procedure if you haven’t mastered it in the previous level.

And like sensei says, there are no shortcuts in many other parts of my life. Often we think we can take a class and attain skills and mastery in “tea ceremony in ten easy lessons” or learn everything we need to know by watching the video “tea mastery in a day.”

Want to get into shape? There are no shortcuts in exercise. Want more patience? To be a better parent? Have a loving relationship? There are no shortcuts here either. In fact, to acquire or strive for something of lasting value, one must do the work and learn it from the beginning.

Sensei says....

Tea is movement. It gets us out of our heads, into our bodies, so we can touch our souls.

We live a lot in our heads, often times without connection to our bodies, nature or the seasons. When we say we have learned something, it is knowledge stored in our brains, with no true experience for us to call upon.

When we first learned to ride a bicycle, we did not learn by attending lectures on bicycle riding, nor did we interview bike riders about the experience. We didn’t view videos or read books about bicycle riding or learn the physics of gyroscopes that keep us upright while on a bicycle. No, we got on our bicycle and tried it. We wobbled and fell down, scraped our knees, and got back on until we had mastered riding that bicycle. What a feeling of accomplishment, movement and freedom it was riding that first time in control.

Chanoyu is movement. All the moves are experiential. You feel it in your body with every breath and every step in the tea room. It is not just in the tea room. It is all the preparations such as keeping to seasonal themes, looking for and arranging the flowers as well as the cleaning before and after that become your experience. With our bodies moving, paying attention to what we are doing gets us out of our self talk. As we move through the ritual, if we have trained our bodies, it knows how to move, what to do. The movements of tea allow our breathing to synchronize with our guests, and communication at a deeper level than talking becomes possible. As we go deeper into the ritual it can even become a spiritual experience, transcending time and place. This, then, is what sensei meant when he said, “… out of our heads, into our bodies so that we can touch our souls.”