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 art of tea

When I think of art I often think of painting, sculpture, photography or something with a tangible result; something to hold onto or point to and say this is art. I don’t often think of the performing arts like dance, theater or music. I read an interview with some rock singer who said that he’d been performing a few of the same songs for 20 years and at every concert he gave, people always shouted out requests for the same songs. He said that nobody would think of asking Leonardo to paint the Mona Lisa over and over again for 20 years.

The art of tea is unlike the fine arts, somewhat like the performing arts, and yet different from them. There is no tangible result from the art of tea, and tea is not a performance with the artist doing and the audience watching or listening. The art of tea is participatory. All the senses are engaged and stimulated. Host and guests create the experience together, with harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. The host strives to serve the guests and the guests do their utmost to appreciate what the host has done.

A lot of people look at chado and think it is rigid with too many rules; that creativity is stifled with tradition and etiquette. And yet, within the context of the rules, there are infinite possibilities to create a unique experience. The host has so many decisions and choices to make to pull off a tea gathering. When, where, and who to invite. Coming up with a theme, choice of utensils, type of temae, what to serve for sweets, and so much more.

For example, I was invited to a tea gathering and the host requested that there be no talking during the gathering. She held it on a weekday at dawn. We were given a light meal to break our fast and then she served sweets and made tea. As we finished the tea gathering the sun was rising and we went on our way to work. What an incredible way to start the day. Ichigo ichie – one lifetime, one meeting.

As you grow in your tea life, be open to the possibilities and use your creativity to create unique experiences for your guests. It’s the art of tea.

Oolong tea tasting in Portland

Have you always wanted to know more about oolong tea? For those of you in
Portland, I'll be hosting an oolong tea tasting workshop through PCC next month.

Oolong is the most complex of all teas. In between black and green tea,
there are infinite varieties of oolong. Learn how to brew oolong tea and
appreciate the different tastes and aromas of 5 different premium teas
from Taiwan and China.

Everyone will receive an oolong sampler of the teas that we will be tasting
and a gaiwan, a traditional brewing vessel, to take home.

I hope you can join me. Sign up early as space is limited. Bring a friend,
pass this along.

Thursday June 26th from 6:30-9:30 pm
Downtown at the Whitmarsh Builiding, 803 SW Morrison St. 97205
Sign up through PCC Community Education
Course number 33047
www.pcc.edu/nc
503-977-8888

Kaiki -- the tea record

At the welcome chakai for Dr. Genshitsu a couple of weeks ago at the Fairmont Hotel in Seattle, we were fortunate to be provided with a program of events by the hosts, the Chado Urasenke Tankokai Seattle Association. Included in the program was a kaiki for both seki (tea gathering sessions). These tea records have survived from Rikyu’s time and by looking at them, we get an idea of what kind of tea gatherings and utensils that were used in those long ago tea gatherings.

In one room there was a Misonodana (table style) tea and in another there was a Chabako (portable traveling box) with many utensils done by very well known collectible artists. The kaiki is a record of the tea utensils and the sweets or other food served at a tea gathering. It serves as a personal memento of the gathering, and as a record of the host’s thoughtfulness in putting together a particular arrangement of utensils.

For example in the Misonodana seki the kettle was a hexagonal Mt. Fuji hailstone kettle made by Josei Sato. The mizusashi (cold water jar) was a Shoko ware cherry blossom with a box inscribed by Hounsai Daisosho. The chashaku (tea scoop) was made by Hounsai Daisosho and its poetic name is “Jiai” (deep compassion).

The chabako seki had an octagonal iron kettle with scenery on all sides; its handle was a bamboo pattern with inlaid silver. The chabako was Setsugekka (snow, moon, flower) box made by Ikkan (one of the famous ten craftsman lines of the Sen families). It came in a box inscribed by Tantansai (14th generation Urasenke grand tea master) and was one of only three boxes ever made. The natsume (tea container) was flat natsume with cherry blossoms and a petal lacquered in the back of the lid, made by Sotetsu, another one of the ten craft families.

These are just examples of some of the utensils that were used. I personally did not get to see all of the utensils close up because I was working in the back. (But I did get to wash the black raku bowl by Seinyu, what a thrill). So I was able to at least see what kinds of utensils were used in the seki.

I have kept all of the kaiki I have received, and I look at them when ever I am putting together utensils for a tea gathering. It gives me ideas and also I get to re-live the tea gathering that I attended previously.

The shape and form of tea practice

One of the topics of Dr. Sen’s talk was about kata and katachi. These terms are very closely related, and yet there is a difference. I touched on this difference in the post
http://sweetpersimmon1.blogspot.com/2007/08/form-kata.html

...Patterns or rules are involved not only in chanoyu but in all endeavors.
Especially in sports and other games, if rules are not followed, there can be
no pleasure in the competition. Similarly within the training of temae (the
various procedures by which tea is made) one first thoroughly masters the
basic steps and gestures that comprise the pattern of each temae. When
one's own personality begins to come to life through the pattern, at that
point the pattern becomes inherently intermingled with the nature of that
person's expression of the Way of Tea.

I think of this process as the sublimation of pattern into form. Suffusing
the pattern (kata) with one's own spirit (chi) creates form (katachi).
From long ago, Japanese people have considered spirit (chi) an extraordinarily
important thing. For example, combining the characters for mountain and
spirit yields the word orochi or giant serpentine deity; the characters for
rice field and spirit give tachi or agricultural deity; the characters for
water and spirit, michi or aquatic deity. In truth, spirit surpasses all human
understanding or imagination.

Questions such as whether a person's movements in temae are beautiful or
whether a person is able to proceed through a difficult temae without
mistakes, while important, indicate a temae in which pattern has been
achieved. I urge you to go beyond that, to pour your own fresh individuality
into the temae and guide it towards achieving spirited form. ~ excerpted
from a translation, Pattern and Form, in the April issue of Tanko Magazine,
Heisei 8 (Kyoto: Tankosha, 1996).

Kata refers to shape of practice, that mode of 'still thinking'; an awareness of
technique and self; Kata the form is visible in your practice.

Katachi the form is invisible, coming from within. Perhaps it is like flow, being one with
your practice. There is a deep focus; you have become empty, with mind of mu. In katachi
understanding there is no separation, being one with tea.

As we do tea again and again, we move from shapes ( kata ) to form, (katachi); to the
form within ourselves - empty mind and clear heart, the mind of mu.

~ Thank you to Lynn Moser for her notes on Dr. Sen’s lecture.