The day after Christmas, December 26th we had our first Winter intensive at Issoan Tea School. For my students it was their first intensive. We started at 3 pm and ended at 9:30 pm. In between we sat zazen, practiced warigeiko, reviewed movement in the tearoom, did five teamae, laid the charcoal shozumi and rebuilt the charcoal fire gozumi. One student brought a sushi platter and I made ankake udon for everyone. It was such a success, that we plan to make it an annual event.
Shozumi and Gozumi, laying the initial fire and reubuilding the fire were particular highlights. We don't often get to do these procedures, and especially gozumi so it was a special treat. The charcoal is kind of like your timing device to keep your tea gathering on track. The charcoal is made from special wood and cut into specific size and shape to burn for a specified length of time. It is amazing to hear the singing of the kettle suddenly go silent (and it does seem to be sudden) all at once. It is also a clue to the guests that it is time to take their leave.
Of the two, gozumi is more difficult because you never know what the fire is going to look like as it burns down. Many factors contribute to how the fire burns, from the haigata (ash form), to how the initial fire was laid, to shape of the kettle, how big the furo, how deep the ro, to how long the fire has burned.
So as a host, the first thing you do when you remove the kettle replenish it is to observe how the fire has burned. How much charcoal is left? Did the center collapse? How much of the dozumi (large front charcoal) has burned? Then you rearrange the coals to make room for fresh charcoal and lay them in the fire. You have to use your own judgement whether to use all the charcoal in the basket or only use part of them.
It was a nice fire the students built. And within 30 seconds of returning the kettle to the fire, we once again heard the matsukaze, the sound of the wind in the pines and the murmuring of the kettle.
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.
Doing temae in class is sometimes intimidating, especially when we are learning a new procedure. We want to get it right from the very beginning. Many students have performance anxiety and can do procedures at home but make mistakes or forget the order in front of sensei.
I used to get very nervous before class and worried if I was going to forget something. But after many years of class, and some very kind (but strict) sensei, I have come to the conclusion that performance anxiety is ultimately a self-centered thing. When I should have thought about making the very best tea for my guests, I worried about how I looked. When I should have concentrated on being as natural and relaxed for so my guests enjoyed the experience, I was tense and worried about doing things in the correct order. When I should have made a mistake beautifully, I became embarrassed and forgot what the next thing to do was.
My sensei told me that the classroom is the place to make your mistakes. (And believe me; I have made some real doozies). If you look at mistakes in your temae as learning opportunities, then the outcome is not whether you did it right or wrong, but what did you learn from it. How do you handle a mistake or lapse of memory? Do you get flustered? Do you lose your place? How do you recover from a mistake?
Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. Often the lessons we learn in the tea room have nothing to do with the temae and correct procedures. How you are in the tea room ultimately is how you are in life. If you can detach enough to see how you behave in the tea room, many lessons will open up for the rest of your life.
Torigai-sensei in Kyoto was watching me make tea one day, and afterwards, told me, “Marjorie, you will never have a perfect temae.” I was disappointed that after I worked so hard she thought I would never achieve a perfect temae. “However, you are very interesting to watch. You are able to work yourself out of your mistakes and come out fine in the end.”
Presentation July 18th
Issoan tea will be at the Portland Japanese Garden on Saturday July 18th at 1:00 and 2:00 pm for a demonstration of Chanoyu. Free with admission to the garden. Come down to the tea house for an explanation and to see Japanese Tea Ceremony.
During the Friends in Tea conference, there were two formally scheduled chakai, the opening chakai the first day and the closing chakai on the last day. In between, there was what they called open chakai. The tatami mat room upstairs at the guest house at Dai Bosatsu was divided in half and people could sign up to make tea, drink tea or help in the mizuya.
Many participants brought tea utensils to be used at these open chakai, and with the sweet making workshops going on, we always had plenty of sweets. Wild flowers were growing in abundance and thanks to Jan, the mizuya cho, tea and everything was available to put on chakai.
You could also put together impromptu chakai outside, in the meeting room, on the terrace or on the dock over the lake. More than a few people brought chabako, and there was always an early morning chakai in the woodshed.
I would say that there were about 10 scheduled chakai a day in the tatami room and at least 2-3 more chakai that you could attend in other places. And still, I couldn't get enough of making and drinking tea.
"Don't look with your eyes or cock your ears to listen, just dye your heart with Chanoyu . Look with your eyes and listen with your ears, smell incense and grasp their meaning with questions." ~ from Rikyu's 100 poems.
*Photo courtesy of Morgan Beard
I was invited to a chakai Monday night. Mr. Nishiura, owner of Ryokusuido was in town from Tokyo. He is a student of Omotesenke tea school, and we made tea for each other. One thing that he told me about Omotesenke is that there is the way that men make tea and it is different than the way that women make tea. The simpler way is the way that men make tea.
It was a wonderfully sunny, warm day for a chakai, and I arrived at the house in the late afteroon. I love the way that the sidewalk out to the street is dampened all the way out to the street in the summer time in welcome. It looks so fresh and cooling.
Inside the house was cool and dark. Mr. Nishura had prepared a cool drink for me and invited me to enter the tea room. He had cleaned the tea room top to bottom as well as washed the window so that it looked like there was no glass in it.
He brought fresh sweets from Japan and I enjoyed watching him make tea in the men’s Omotesenke style. What struck me was that the temae placement and order were exactly the same as Urasenke style that I study. Just a few stylistic differences made the procedure distinctive, but not strange. Many of the movements were familiar because they were movements that Urasenke style uses for koicha but not usucha. I could see, however, that studying one style and switching to another style can get very confusing.
The tea was fresh and green, and I particularly enjoyed the “jade lake” in the center of the teabowl surrounded by foam. I then prepared and made tea for Mr. Nishiura and as we cleaned up, we compared notes on the different styles. He was very appreciative of the tea I made for him and complimented me on how graceful was my temae. (That was a first for me and quite unexpected).
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.
Another lesson I took from the koshukai is that I need to slow down. My mind is always full of thngs, and as Christy sensei told me that an active mind manifests as an active body. I sometimes do things so fast that the guests don’t have time to catch their breath or visually rest when they watch me make tea. Especially with koicha, the pace is slower than with usucha to give the ceremony more weight.
This is not a new problem for me. I know that my mind moves very fast, and I talk very fast. When I get nervous, I move and talk even faster. I am getting better though, Christy sensei did find a few places while I was making tea that were restful, but I really need to slow down.
One way I do this is to pay attention to my breathing. Whenever I am nervous or excited, I tend to hold my breath or breathe very shallowly. Taking one or two deep breaths helps to restore oxygen to my system and my brain seems to function better. Continuing to breathe while my body is moving tends to focus my mind, slow down my nervous tics and allows me to be more present.
From the beginning of entering the tea room until the last act of closing the door, your breathing should be even and controlled. This breathing helps to control the pace of the procedure. As you begin the procedure, folding your fukusa, your guests will begin to breathe in unison with you. It is amazing what happens to the harmony in the room when everyone is breathing in unison.
If you have the opposite problem that I do, of being too slow and too deliberate, increasing the pace of your breathing very slightly will help the pace of your tea procedure. Holding your breath while you make tea does not do you any good at all. You must breathe.
During the course of making tea for Christy sensei, she pointed out a bad habit I have when I fold my fukusa. I didn't even realize that I was doing it. She stopped me in the middle of folding it and asked me if I knew why she stopped me. I had no idea and she said that it must be a habit if I am unaware of it. She then proceeded to demonstrate what I do and I was appalled at how sloppy it looked. From then on, I was conscious of making sure I did NOT do it when I fold the fukusa.
The first step in breaking a bad habit is becoming aware it is a habit. We cannot see ourselves so it is a good thing to have someone point these bad habits out. The problem is that honest feedback seems so impolite in the tea room. To overcome this, the intention of giving the feedback has to be clean and it must be pointed out in a loving way. I am grateful to sensei that she is paying attention to what I do and is honest with me to help me improve.
We train our bodies so that we can do the movements of temae with an empty mind. And if we train our bodies to do something, it will faithfully reproduce what we have trained it to do; it becomes a habit. Somewhere along the way, I had trained my body into a bad habit and I did it without realizing that I was doing it. They say that it takes a minimum of doing something 32 times before it becomes a habit. So the second step once we become aware is to consciously do it correctly for a minimum of 32 times.
Christy also suggested that I examine what it was that made me initiate the bad habit in the first place. For something as basic as folding the fukusa, I know the correct way to fold it, but something triggered a change and I kept repeating it until I became unaware of it. By examining the trigger, it will help me break the bad habit as I re-train my body to do it again correctly.
No matter how many times we have done temae, it is always good to pay attention to what we are doing. One of the things Christy sensei emphasized in koshukai is the precision with which we do temae. First of all make sure that the orientation of your body is correct. Especially in the winter season, there is a difference in centering your body with the outside corner of the hearth frame and the inside corner. There may be less than an inch in difference, but it changes the position of all the utensils as you use them. Your left knee should also come up to be even with the corner of the hearth frame, and the space of 16 tatami weaves should be in front of you. Also make sure that your body is centered with the outside line of the hearth frame when speaking with guests and putting out the haiken utensils.
One thing many students become sloppy with is picking up and moving utensils. When the left hand or the right hand picks up or puts down the bowl make sure it is precisely at 9 o’clock or three o’clock on the bowl. There are certain times to pick up the bowl or set it down at 5 o’clock or 7 o’clock. Know when to use these different handling techniques and why. When transferring the bowl or the hishaku (water scoop) make sure that changing hands occurs in the center of the body. A lot of students tend to transfer the utensils from one hand to another on the way to where ever it is traveling.
After purifying natsume or chaire, the fukusa is squeezed in the right hand, but then it comes just over the right knee. If you pull your hand up your leg near your body, you get this chicken wing effect as you put down the tea container that looks awkward and funny.
Finally, make sure you have good posture. Not only do you look better in kimono if you have good posture, but also when making tea, sit with a straight back and not too close to the bowl. Bow with a straight back and do not put your weight on your hands while you are doing it.
We all learned these things as basics, but it is always a good reminder to pay attention to what we are doing in temae, even if we have done them a hundred times before.
Christy Bartlett sensei was just in town for koshukai, an intensive teaching workshop for the way of tea. These workshops are always an inspiring and humbling experience. Usually they last two or three days and are divided into sections for advanced intermediate and beginner students. The students prepare and make tea for other student guests much like regular keiko, but as I said before it is intensive. Christy sensei’s experience, knowledge and teaching deepen our understanding of the way of tea, of the historical precedents of tea, of the exact order and questions about temae and most important, something about ourselves. One thing I so appreciate about Christy sensei is that she gives the most honest feedback and corrects even the smallest points to pay attention to. The effects of these workshops stays with me for many days and weeks.
These koshukai are also a gathering time to be with people who we do not ordinarily see, fellow students and teachers of the way of tea. While the format of the classes are strict, there is a fellowship of feeling as we are all there to study hard and learn more. There is something to be said about the closeness one feels for other students who have suffered along with you sitting seiza for 8 hours a day for three days.
It was interesting to me that this time, what struck me the most was not so much the teaching of the upper temae, but comments and teaching from sensei about the basics. How to fold the fukusa, working on footwork, conversation about utensils, picking up and putting things down, the speed (or slowness) of the pace of temae. How we do all of these things tell us about ourselves. It is a way of looking at ourselves as we are in the world. What can we learn by looking at ourselves as we behave in the tea room?
For students following the way of tea, everything is done right handed. Wiping, purifying, whisking, picking thing up with chopsticks, scooping water or tea, all are done with right hand. How disorienting it must be for left handers.
I have felt some of the disorientation that left handers encounter when I began to learn the gyakugatte procedures. Gyakugatte refers to the orientation of the room and it means ‘the opposite hand.’ In an orthodox or hongatte room, the guests are seated to the right of the host. The host makes tea and sets the teabowl out to the guests with the right hand. In a gyakugatte room, the guests are seated to the left of the host and the teabowl needs to be set out to the guests with the left hand because it is difficult to reach with the right hand.
In a gyakugatte room, the kensui is brought in with the right hand, entering the room is done with the left foot and the fukusa is worn on the right side. Though some things are done with the opposite hand, not all of the procedures are. Purifying utensils are done with right hand, water is still scooped from the kettle with the right hand and tea is whisked with the right hand.
Since I learned to do the gyakugatte procedures after ten years of doing it the orthodox way, my body was trained to anticipate the next move until I rarely had to think about it. The new procedures produced an uncomfortable sensation in my body and I became quite anxious whenever I made tea this way. My footwork was all off and my timing suffered. In fact, I felt like a beginner again because I didn’t know what to do next or which hand to use to pick up or put down anything.
It is quite humbling to feel this way. That is one of the reasons why I sometimes prepare a tea demonstration for gyakugatte. I have to pay strict attention and be very present to get through these procedures in front of people. Thank sensei, for teaching me these procedures so that I won’t forget what it feels like to be a beginner.
When Christy sensei comes for koshukai, there is so much information that my head spins. She not only teaches us the formal tea procedures, has also lectured on aesthetics, talked about the history of the grand tea masters, given us background and context of Japanese history, literature, drama and poetry.
And I was reminded once again that we don't take notes in class. Tea is an oral tradition, passed by the spoken word and practice of making tea. It also helps to train our minds to remember if we don't take notes or become dependent on them. As an inveterate note taker with a bad memory, this is very difficult for me. I just had to take a few notes and found myself running out of the room at breaks to write a few things down even though by the time I got my notebook and pencil out, I had forgotten much of what I wanted to write down.
I have heard that in learning chado, the way of tea, the presence of a sensei is more important than the actual teaching that they do. Christy sensei told us of an older sensei who told her that when he was learning tea, all his sensei did was watch him. No words were spoken, the student had to read the body language and figure out for himself what was wrong and how to correct it. She said that we are very lucky that our sensei want to transmit the knowledge and just give us corrections and teach us actively. It used to be one had to steal the knowledge of tea from the teacher.
My experience of learning chado, is that much of teaching is indirect and subtle. That is through anecdotes and stories, we learn what is valued. By reading scrolls and discussing possible meanings of the Zen phrases, we learn the philosophy and by observing and looking at tea utensils, we train our eyes and mind in the aesthetics of chado. Temae, or the procedures for making tea teaches the heart of tea itself.
Twice a year, we are so very fortunate to have Christy Bartlett sensei come to Portland for Koshukai, intensive training workshops in the way of tea. We have just concluded three days going from very highest and most complicated procedures to the basic beginning procedures. As in the Rikyu poem we went from one to ten and back to the original one again in the space of a weekend.
For those of us who participated in the entire three days, sitting seiza the whole time is a challenge, but a place where training shows. Some of the procedures we only do once a year and to recall them and do them in front of sensei and everyone can be intimidating.
Christy-sensei is so knowledgeable that just listening to her teaching as others do temae, is educational. She incorporates stories of past tea masters teachings, history, aesthetics, zen phrases and information about other Japanese arts in her teaching.
I will be writing about what I learned in koshukai for the next few days in posts following this one.
It is always inspiring and humbling to attend koshukai. Inspiring because I reconnect why I follow the way of tea, and humbling because there is so much that I have yet to learn.
