At our city library, among a lot of
Japanese books at the shelves for The Way of Tea, I found a book written in
English. It is entitled “THE SPIRIT OF
TEA” by Sen Soshitu XV, who was the Urasenke grand master.
You can’t learn about the preparation of
tea or how to conduct a tea ceremony from this book. But, the great importance of this book is
that you will be able to understand what we enjoy in The Way of Tea. This book talks about the SPIRIT with a great
quality of photos. I realized that there
is no other culture in the world which you talks about the SPRIT of beverage
drinking this much.
In my tea lesson, I always practice the ceremony
only by role playing in a tea room, and I don’t study these spiritual theories in
a class room. This book has some answers
for the wonders I had on things in the tea ceremony. It
also taught me things that I have never realized.
But, in some other parts, the ideas are abstract
and difficult. For example, description
of wabi is pretty different from the other
books I read. That makes it more difficult
for me to understand what wabi
is. I believe that the descriptions will
differ depending on one’s point of view even if we are looking at the same
thing.
In this book, Soshitu mentioned:
“The way of tea, chado, must be acquired by means of the movements of your own body
and through one’s own experiences. It
cannot be learned by observing and listening to others thus by imitating them.
There is no other method than this in pursuing chado.”
I think you also have to find out and
understand these spiritual aspects all throughout your experience. However, this book tells me about some of them,
and helps me understand these essences a little faster than discovering them by
myself. This is one of the books that I
want to re-read sometimes as I carry on The Way of Tea. I’ll recommend this book for those who want
to know more about Japanese way of tea.
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That book sounds really interesting! I found another good tea book, though it's more international. "The Story of Tea."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.ca/The-Story-Tea-Cultural-Drinking/dp/1580087450/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1333198746&sr=8-10
Cheers,
Kate
http://sagacitea.blogspot.com
Thanks! Your book seems to have broad range of information about tea, and it sounds nice (^^)
Deletehello, i love your blog! linked up to it immediately after discovering it. i truly enjoy reading about the japanese way of tea. i liked The Book of Tea and will likely pick this book up. thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteArigato! Oh, you have read The Book of Tea? I have the book, but I read it only half and haven’t fined it yet. It has been resting in my bookshelf for a quite while, hahaha (^^;; I have to resume reading it.
DeleteOops,I wanted to mean “I read only half of it and haven’t FINISHED it yet.” (^^;;
DeleteDear Kohei, looks like a beautiful book! The same grand master also wrote _The Enjoyment of Tea_, which has been translated into English. I just read it, and one good thing about it is that it translates the Rikyu Hyakyushu into English. Have you read the 100 poems Rikyu wrote? I have been wondering about them so I am glad to finally find them in English.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/The-Enjoyment-Tea-Sen-Genshitsu/dp/4473032965
Thank for sharing about the book. I have heard of only some of famous poems, and I have not read the 100. One of the most memorable one that my master often told me is “Treat heavy items lightly, and light items heavily.” It really makes sense. I’m very interested in them and I would like to read and learn them someday (^^)
DeleteYes, I like that one. He repeats that idea several times in his poems. Another famous one is "Know that chanoyu is a matter of simply boiling water, making the tea, and drinking it."
ReplyDeleteI like that even though many of the poems contain specific instructions about doing tea, others are rebellious: "Think of what you have learned as refuse and use your notes to paper the wall of your tearoom." Or, along with a series of poems about how to lay charcoal, he also says "Even though the charcoal placement may be contrary to the way it is taught, charcoal that brings the hot water to a good boil is charcoal."
“what you have learned as refuse” Hahaha, very interesting! You made me want to read about them more (^-^) Thanks.
Delete