More reading

In these dark days, it is always good to have a few books to curl up with to take us away.   Here are two more books that I have added to my bookshelf:

Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Nature, Literature and the Arts, by Haruo Shirane. ISBN: 978-0-231-15281-5
I heard a lecture by Professor Shirane at the Portland Japanese Garden this fall.  Here is the publisher's description:

Elegant representations of nature and the four seasons populate a wide range of Japanese genres and media—from poetry and screen painting to tea ceremonies, flower arrangements, and annual observances. In Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane shows how, when, and why this practice developed and explicates the richly encoded social, religious, and political meanings of this imagery.

Refuting the belief that this tradition reflects Japan’s agrarian origins and supposedly mild climate, Shirane traces the establishment of seasonal topics to the poetry composed by the urban nobility in the eighth century. After becoming highly codified and influencing visual arts in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the seasonal topics and their cultural associations evolved and spread to other genres, eventually settling in the popular culture of the early modern period. Contrasted with the elegant images of nature derived from court poetry was the agrarian view of nature based on rural life. The two landscapes began to intersect in the medieval period, creating a complex, layered web of competing associations. Shirane discusses a wide array of representations of nature and the four seasons in many genres, originating in both the urban and rural perspective: textual (poetry, chronicles, tales), cultivated (gardens, flower arrangement), material (kimonos, screens), performative (noh, festivals), and gastronomic (tea ceremony, food rituals). He reveals how this kind of “secondary nature,” which flourished in Japan's urban architecture and gardens, fostered and idealized a sense of harmony with the natural world just at the moment it was disappearing.

Illuminating the deeper meaning behind Japanese aesthetics and artifacts, Shirane clarifies the use of natural images and seasonal topics and the changes in their cultural associations and function across history, genre, and community over more than a millennium. In this fascinating book, the four seasons are revealed to be as much a cultural construction as a reflection of the physical world.

The other book I am reading is Elements of Japanese Design, by Boye Lafayette De Mente. ISBN:9780804837491

Here is the publisher's description:

 Elements of Japanese Design introduces 80 key concepts in Japanese design in a readable and accessible short-entry format. Including a brief explanation and examples of every aspect of Japanese design-from Wah (Harmony) to Kaizen (Continuous Improvement), from Mushin (the Empty Mind) to Mujo (Incompleteness).

My review:  This is an excellent little book that talks about hard to explain aesthetic concepts.  They all apply to the study of Chado.  What is particularly nice is that each chapter (concept) begins with the kanji, the romanji, and phonetic pronunciation, and then a short description to help you remember the concept.  The further description helps to put these concepts into a western context to help us better understand it.  Easy to read and understand English language helps to bridge the gap in those unexplainable concepts like wabi, sabi, and shibui.

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.

What do you love?

It is not often that we give ourselves permission to love, or let alone talk about the things we love. These days it is hip and cool to be cynical and make fun of others who are too emotional. Someone told me once that I needed to take a look at where I was spending my money, because there also was my heart.

These days, I spend my heart on chado, my husband, my grandchildren, my students, and sewing. Besides the essentials of food and shelter, there also I spend my money. Since leaving the corporate world, I have pared down my lifestyle to fit my considerably reduced income and I could not be happier.

Just as wabi used to mean to be disappointed by failing in some enterprise or living a miserable and poverty stricken life, some of my former associates would look at my present life and think that I am miserable. But wabi also means to transform material insufficiency so that one discovers in it a world of spiritual freedom.

Right now, I have never been more joyful in my life. Everyday is a good day. I feel aligned in living my values and in the integrity of what I do. I feel grateful for the opportunity to live this life. I love what I do, I love my life and I love to share with others some of the things I've learned through chado.

What do you love?

Reduce, reuse, recyle and repair

“There was a Chajin of Sakai who had a tea caddy called Sessan and he used it when Rikyu came. But Rikyu thought nothing of it so its owner smashed it against the trivet on the hearth. Another guest took away the pieces and put them together again and gave a chaji to which he invited Rikyu. This time the master praised the caddy, so the host returned it to its former owner and told him to take great care of it. Later on someone bought it for a thousand pieces of gold, and noticing that the joins were very rough proposed to have it mended again more neatly and submitted it to Kobori Enshu for his opinion. “If you do that you will spoil it altogether,” was his decision, “for that was just why Rikyu liked it.” ~from Cha-no-yu, by A.L. Sadler

Today in our disposable society, when something is broken, we toss it out without even thinking about it. Technology and planned obsolescence makes it cheaper and more convenient to throw things out and buy new ones, especially with more features, bells and whistles on it. I had a VCR and it stopped working one day. I took it to a repair shop and the guy told me that it wasn’t worth fixing because it would cost me $150, when I could go a buy a new one with a more sophisticated remote control gizmos for $49.00. I was told my old sewing machine (1940s model) was worth less than $15, and yet it costs $85 for a cleaning and adjustment. The technician told me to junk it because he’d likely spend at least a month trying to track down a similar model so he could cannibalize parts for it as it is no longer manufactured and I would end up paying him for his time as well. I have two or three old cell phones that worked fine until the cell phone company no longer supported them and I had to upgrade to a new one.

But, going green, there is a consciousness of not just recycling, but repair and reusing things that were broken, discarded or no longer usable. Just like the depression of my parent’s era, in this economic climate, there are more people who see repairing things as a way to save money, and get more use out of what you already have. It may be even cool again to be known as the guy who can repair anything. There is even a site that seeks to make repair the fourth ‘R’: reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair. The repair manifesto.


In my classes we are learning chabako (traveling tea set). I have a set with matching ceramics with a bamboo desgin, but the chakin tsutsu (wiping cloth tube) met the floor rather violently last week and was shattered into many pieces. In the spirit of Rikyu’s guest, I gathered as many pieces as I could find and repaired with a little gold powder in the joints. Now I have a chakin tsutsu that no longer matches the set, but has an interesting story.

In Praise of Shadows

As the days are getting longer, our tea classes are increasingly held in the darkness that fills the autumn evenings. At the Ryokusuido Tea Room, there is only a single light with a low wattage bulb in the tea room. I love the way that the light of this room reveals and hides at the same time.

I have often thought that this low light situation looks like the room is lit only by candlelight. It is quite romantic to have the corners of the tea room shrouded in the shadows and the face of the host softly lit with a mellow light. It concentrates the focus of the guests when the temaeza is all that is illuminated.

I have often thought of tea in the time of Rikyu. Without electricity, the tea room would have been quite dark in the evenings except what was shown by the light of a lamp or candle. The host and guests must pay more attention to sounds and to smells as the dependence on sight is diminished. The edges of the things are softened and the room itself seems to expand in the darkness. If one were to use charcoal to heat the water the glow from the coals is not visible with the lights on. Only in the darkness can we see the reflection of the charcoal on the black lacquer, and the chrysanthemum at the ends of the burning wood is revealed.

It now makes sense for the guests to go to the alcove or tokonoma to look at the scroll and then go to look at the kettle and utensils. It also makes sense to ask for haiken to look at the utensils close up as these things would only show a gleam of gold from across the room. And we get to touch them and savor the texture of the clay from the tea bowl or smoothness of the bamboo tea scoop.

There is something to be said for the bright light of day to penetrate the shoji and illuminate the tea room. But also do not forget the shadows of the evening to reveal what is hidden in the darkness at the edges of the tearoom.

The seven grasses of autumn

Aki no ni
sakitaru hana o
yubi orite
kaki kazoureba
nana kusa no hana

hagi ga hana
obana kuzubana
nadeshiko no hana
ominaeshi
mata fujibakama
asagao no hana.

Flowers blossoming in the autumn fields
when I count them on my fingers
they number seven.

the flowers of the bush clover,
pampas grass, and arrowroot
dianthus, patrina,
also mistflower and morning glory.

In Japan, autumn is a time of mountains turning to magnificent crimson brocade, tapestries and cities glowing in wonderful autumn tints as the days grow cooler. From the earliest days, autumn has been extolled in Japanese poetry, painting, and design as well as enjoyed through foods that are available only in this season.

The seven grasses of autumn were often mentioned in the many verses of the Man’yoshu, the first collection of Japanese poetry and song. The images of autumn grasses presented in the Kokinshu, the first Imperial anthology of poetry compiled in 905, illustrates life in the Heian times in a way that could not be captured by painting. The subtle nuances of life and love at the time were illustrated with words alone, using nature and flowers to depict a clear picture of life in Hein Japan.

It is through the above poem by Yamanoue Okua, a court noble during 724-729, that the seven grasses of autumn have become well known.

from "An anthology of the seasonal feeling of chanoyu," by Michael A. Birch, Soei

Nagori, a lingering feeling

It seems like overnight, we went from the warm pleasant days of September to the chill showers of October. It is indeed fall as the leaves are in their full color against the cloudy grey skies of the Pacific Northwest.

In some ways, October is the perfect month for tea. There are so many themes to choose from, and the lingering nostalgia for the summer months makes October a wabi tea month. The broken and repaired teabowls, the slender mizusashi, the gyogodana which we only get to use this one month of the year. Traditionally, the tea jars that were packed full from last year are down to the end of tea this time of year. Mostly there are the broken and discarded leaves at the bottom of the jar. The brazier moves from the left side of the tatami mat to the middle to move the fire closer to the guests and ward off the chill. Soon the brazier will be put away and there is a general melancholy at the coming of winter. Looking at what remains, there is a nostalgic lingering feeling of farewell. This is called nagori.

In a way, the autumn is looked as the end-- end of bright summer days, the warmth of sun on our faces. As the days shorten and the rains come, we wish that summer could go on. But in many ways, autumn is the beginning. School starts in autumn, and for tea people, the new year of tea begins in autumn as we look forward to using the new tea leaves harvested in May. But now, with the coming of winter, there is an urge to use precious resources and not waste anything.

Chashaku, the tea scoop

One of the humblest tea utensils is the bamboo tea scoop. Historically, tea scoops were made of wood or ivory, but Rikyu began to make tea scoops from bamboo in the wabi cha aesthetic.

The chashaku is merely a strip of bamboo, curved at the end, and yet it holds much significance. Chashaku are one of the utensils scrutinized by the guests during haiken (the time of appreciating utensils in a tea gathering). They are given poetic names and help to set the tone of the tea gathering. Buddhist priests and other famous tea people have carved tea scoops and given them names thus connecting us with them when we study them or have the good fortune to use them in a tea gathering.

I have been trying to carve my own chashaku, and like everything else in chado, it is much harder than it looks. I was given some very nice bamboo by a basket weaving artist who grew it in his back yard. This bamboo was about four inches in diameter and I thought it would be easier to bend into a chashaku shape.

I wouldn’t say that my carving skills are very good and it took about 18 tries before I had what I thought was an acceptable chashaku. Along the way I learned many subtleties of that humble tea scoop – such as how bamboo tends to split in straight lines, except when it doesn’t. And how to bend the bamboo with enough curve without cracking it, or how to finish the end in a pleasing manner, or even by golly, to make sure that the scoop will fit on top of the tea container without becoming a helicopter during a tea procedure.

I have a new appreciation for the chashaku and the next time I have an opportunity to haiken a tea scoop, I will understand much better how that humble piece of bamboo reflects the soul and spirit of the person who lovingly carved it.

C.H.A. Show and Sale

C.H.A.
Creative Handmade Art

With the study of Chado (Way of Tea) comes the appreciation of beauty.
C.H.A. is a Show and Sale of Articles of Beauty* by people who study Chado.
*may or may not be for Tea

Richard Brandt ~ Sanje Elliot ~ Linda Nelson ~ Craig Tenney
jan Waldmann ~ Barbara Walker ~ Ernie Walker ~ Margie Yap
&
Possibly a few Guest Artisans

Friday, August 1^st 4 pm ~ 8 pm OPENING GATHERING
Saturday & Sunday Noon ~ 4 pm

DoShin Tei
Jan Waldmann
8855 SW 36^th
Portland, Oregon 97219
503-245-8705

Chisoku – Contentment

I wanted to write something about this as the last post was about desire and achieving goals. So often I compare myself to other people and find myself coming up short. So and so has more money and if I had what he has, I’d be happy. Or I wish I had her job, or I wish I had more time to --------.

There was a story about two neighbors. One had a beautiful yard, green lawn, trimmed bushes, and flowering fruit trees. The other’s yard was overgrown with dandelions, leaves unraked from last year and wild branches everywhere. The unkempt neighbor said to his friend, “I want a yard just like my neighbor’s.” His friend responded, “Jim, if you had a yard like your neighbor’s, in six months time, your yard will look exactly the same as the yard you have now.”

I have found two ways to deal with this coming up short feeling. Get to work to change yourself or want what you already have. The last post was about working to get what you want, but I’d like write some more about wanting what you already have. You can also read here about how much is enough.

In our society it is not easy to be satisfied with what we have. 6-7,000 advertising messages a day exhort us to want more, be more, buy more. The consumer economy only works as long as everyone keeps on buying more and more. We are richest country on earth, so much so that overeating is a major problem. We have the largest houses in the world, and yet 1 in every 10 rents additional storage space for their stuff.

When we moved from Seattle to Portland we bought a smaller home and people asked us why when we could afford a larger one. Because we have no need of a larger home. My sister just bought an 800 sq. ft. home for herself, her husband and daughter. They will be moving from a 2400 sq.ft home to one a third the size.

With the economy tanking, smaller more fuel efficient cars are rising in popularity as well as an environmental consciousness to leave a smaller carbon footprint to stop global warming. Publications such as Real Simple and the Tightwad Gazette feed into these trends.

Rikyu said, “There is shelter enough if it keeps the rain off, and food enough when it staves off hunger. We draw water, gather firewood, boil the water and make tea.” (from the Nampuroku) and “Tea should not be an exhibition of what the tea man owns. Instead the sincerity of his heart should be expressed.” (from Rikyu’s 100 poems)

The Japanese kanji for contentment is made up of two characters: chi soku, literally to know sufficiency. Nobody can tell us how much is enough. If we rely on external sources to tell us, there will never be enough. There will always be something more that we do not have. Only we know what it is in our lives to know sufficiency. It comes from inside us. It comes from appreciating what we already have, from knowing what is really important to us, and deciding what we can live without.

Grinding tea

I tried grinding my own matcha last week. I used some Gyokuro, which is leaf tea grown and processed like matcha, only it is not ground up. I didn’t have a tea grinding stone. I used a mortar and pestle because I thought it would grind it to a fine powder.

I remembered from my tea lectures that often it fell to the daughter of the house to grind the tea because the tea grinding stones are heavy and young girls, unlike young boys don’t try to muscle the stones to grind the tea faster. Something about the heat from the friction of the stones changes the flavor of the tea. So I tried to grind the tea slowly and make good matcha.

Whew! Grinding tea is hard work. After about an hour, I had some broken up tea flakes, but nothing that resembled the fine powder of matcha. We’re talking baby powder fineness here, and I was still a long way from that. I began to press harder on the pestle, but then remembered the friction and heat.

Two and a half hours later I had ground enough tea for one hearty bowl of matcha. I thought it was fine enough to whisk into a good bowl of tea.

And how was the taste? It was terrible. Completely awful. Though it whisked up to a fine froth, the taste left much to be desired. Besides being the most bitter matcha I ever tasted, the mouth feel of this tea was like a big bite of compost. It grassy and chewy and not in a good way. Apparently it was not ground fine enough and perhaps the gyokuro was not the highest quality. I drank the whole bowl, but I don’t think I’ll be grinding tea again. Now I know why good matcha costs so much.

The all-purpose furoshiki

The Japanese are famous for packaging. Even when you buy vegetables at the market, they wrap or tie them up in very pleasing ways. Department stores wrap up your purchases to take home. Gifts are wrapped, tied and decorated in elaborate ways.

There is also the humble furoshiki (furosh-ki), a nearly square piece of cloth that can be wrapped and tied in many different ways depending on what is inside. These wrapping cloths can be utilitarian in a plain, solid color cotton or beautifully and elaborately dyed chirimen silk and it is versatile and re-usable. You can carry watermelons to wine bottles in furoshiki. It can be used as a shopping bag, a laptop wrap, or used to wrap up your kimono and accessories. They can be used to wrap up your lunch. Sometimes, instead of a handbag, I wrap everything in a furoshiki and carry it with me. It looks sort of like I am running away from home. Now days, furoshiki are often used as giftwrap.

There is a Japanese word, “mottainai.” It has become a catchphrase for Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, equating it roughly to the English phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" (It might include "Repair", too.).

Here is an excerpt of the 88th Commencement Speech she gave at Connecticut College in 2006: “Recently I was in Japan. They told me they used to be very conscious of this concept of mottainai, but we are losing it. Since I went there, they have revived that concept. The Japanese custom, before they became very affluent, was to tie gifts in a piece of cloth, which they called furoshiki. They tie it so you give the gift but you keep the cloth. So, you recycle it, you reuse it. Now, of course, we use paper and every time you use paper, remember that is a cut tree. That is a tree that has died to produce paper.”

More about furoshiki in this article “The Japanese Gift for Shopping”

The right stuff

When people approach something with a passion there is always the excitement of learning something new. Many times I see the various stages that my students go through as they pursue the way of tea, but you also see this in the way people pursue other activities of passion such as martial arts, photogrpahy, snowboarding, for example.

The first stage is learning basic competency – how do I walk in the tea room, what is the correct way of receiving tea? What comes next in the procedure for making tea? Am I sitting exactly 16 weaves from the black line? Do I have the exposure correct in my camera? Can I stand up on my board? Can I fall without hurting myself? Did I use the correct form for that hip throw? Most of the energy is focused inwards to the self as we develop the discipline of our bodies and minds to the task at hand. It takes concentration, memory, and body memory to do things in the proper order, in the proper amount to come to a satisfactory conclusion. This self-mastery is an important stage.

When the student feels a level of competency, the next stage I have observed is the getting the right stuff. Acquisition of the right equipment or gear becomes very important. How many photographers do you know who have different lenses, filters, timers, tripods – or skiers with different skis for wet snow, powder or rock skiing? The right bicycle shoes, helmets, or clothing? Tea people with the right tea bowl, kettles, braziers, kimono? Quite often, the student feels that if he doesn’t have the right stuff, he cannot practice tea. If they don’t have tatami mat room, or the appropiate bowl for the season, it is just no use.
And yet some of the most memorable photographs were taken with a simple manual box camera. The most memorable tea gathering that I attended was a spontaneous one with utensils collected from students in the dormitory where I stayed in Japan. We used what we had and it was an odd mish mash of things -- some found objects, some gifts, some very inexpensive practice utensils.

While it encouraging to have students dedicated enough to continue studying, There is just so much to learn and it takes time to train your eye and sensibilities in the wabi aesthetic of tea ceremony. I mostly recommend to my students to hold off buying equipment and utensils until they have enough experience in holding tea gatherings, working with more experienced tea practitioners and feeling confident in their purchases. The right equipment doesn’t make you better at chado, a sincere heart does.

"Tea should not be an exhibition of what the tea man owns. Instead the sincerity of his heart should be expressed." (from Rikyu's 100 poems).

Preparing for tea

Throughout the ceremony, the hosts and guests both aspire towards a sense of tranquility. The priest Takuan wrote of preparing for a tea ceremony and said, "and let this all be carried out in accordance with the idea that in this room we can enjoy the streams and rocks as we do the rivers and mountains in Nature, and appreciate the various moods and sentiments suggested by the snow, the moon, and the trees and flowers, as they go through the transformation of seasons, appearing and disappearing, blooming and withering. As visitors are greeted here with due reverence, we listen quietly to the boiling water in the kettle, which sounds like a breeze passing through the pine needles, and become oblivious of all worldly woes and worries…"

A few more thoughts on wabi

I went out to my garden to pick flowers for chanoyu class. At this late date, there are very few flowers left. After the previous night’s storm, the few chrysanthemums hanging on were looking pretty ragged. I picked one anyway and brought it in for the day’s tea ceremony. I also chose a branch of leaves that were past the brilliant color of autumn: it was turning brown and curling at the edges.

These imperfect flowers were what I consider an example of wabi. I arranged them in a simple hanging bamboo vase. There is even a poetic name for this type of flower: rangiku. When I first heard this, I asked for a translation of it and was told that it is like a once beautiful woman of a certain age. Certainly this chrysanthemum had a dignity about it. It didn’t hang its head, but stood proudly in the vase. It was a survivor, one of the last of the season and it had been through the storm and endured. With the branch of leaves, they both said so much about the season, too. Like the poem, quoted in this post, no flowers or colored leaves, only a thatched hut in the autumn dusk. The tea tasted so delicious that day.

A few thoughts on wabi

The aesthetic of wabi permeates and defines beauty for the Japanese culture. It is the ideal of Chanoyu yet wabi often is difficult to define and usually is reduced to simple and rustic. I would like to explore a little more about the origins of wabi, and its relationship with tea. As the Japanese aesthetic of beauty, wabi is a concept that is difficult to explain and deep in meaning.

It has its origins in the verb wabiru. The original meaning of wabiru is to be disappointed by failing in some enterprise or living a miserable and poverty stricken life. According to the Zen-cha Roku, wabi means lacking things, having things run entirely contrary to our desires, being frustrated in our wishes. It goes on to say that to feel what is lacking is deprivation, or to believe that not being provided for is poverty is NOT wabi but rather the spirit of a pauper. Wabi means to transform material insufficiency so that one discovers in it a world of spiritual freedom. Although the beauty of wabi is not simply a beauty of mere poverty, unpretentiousness or simplicity, there are times when that is what it may seem to be.

Three aspects of wabi:
• Simple, unpretentious beauty
• Imperfect, irregular beauty
• Austere, stark beauty

The simple, unpretentious beauty is certainly one of the most obvious features of the wabi aesthetic, but it should not be confused with empty simplicity, or misshapen features with imperfect or irregular beauty. Wabi is a kind of beauty which stores a nobility, richness of spirit and purity within what may appear to be a rough exterior. There is a restraint that does not call attention to itself, yet attention to the smallest detail has been lavished on what cannot be seen.

An example of imperfect, irregular beauty we can see in the many famous tea utensils that have somehow been damaged and lovingly repaired. There is a well known bamboo flower vase made by Rikyu called Onjōji and it is prized because it is cracked, or the tea bowl named Seppo made by Koetsu that is admired because is has been repaired.

The austere, stark beauty of wabi comes from the tradition of renga poetry, a form of group composition of linked verse and from the Noh theater. The poets called it a cold and withered beauty and Zeami of the Noh called it an austere and serene beauty. This is the beauty of age and experience that can only be attained through a master’s accomplishment. It is a paring away of externals, until only the essence is left.

Two poems often cited by tea masters to explain wabi:

Looking about
neither flowers
nor scarlet leaves
a bayside reed hovel
an the autumn dusk
~Fujiwara no Teika

To those who wait
only for flowers
show them a sprig
of grass under the snow
in a mountain village
~Fujiwara no Ietaka