Drinking Tea out of a Single Bowl with
the Profound Formality of a Holy Sacrament
「The tea-ideal of the Sungs differed from the Tangs even as their notion of life differed. They sought to actualise what their predecessors tried to symbolise. To the Neo-Confucian mind the cosmic law was not reflected in the phenomenal world, but the phenomenal world was the cosmic law itself. AEons were but moments-Nirvana always within grasp. The Taoist conception that immortality lay in the eternal change permeated all their modes of thought. It was the process, not the deed, which was interesting. It was the completing, not the completion, which was really vital. Man came thus at once face to face with nature. A new meaning grew into the art of life. The tea began to be not a poetical pasime, but one of the methods of self-realisation. Wangyu-cheng eulogised tea as "flooding his soul like a direct appeal, that its delicate bitterness reminded him of the after-taste of a good counsel." Sotumpa wrote of the strength of the immaculate purity in tea which defied corruption as a truly virtuous man. Among the Buddists, the southern Zen sect, which incorporated so much of Taoist doctrines, formulated an elaborate ritual of of tea.The monks gathered before the image of Bodhi Dharma and drank tea out of a single bowl with the profound formity of a holy sacrament. It was this Zen ritual which finally developed into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth century.」(From the Book of Tea-The School of Tea, pp.28- Book of Tea-The School of Tea, pp.28-30, of Tea-The School of Tea, pp.28-30, Charles E. Tuttle Co.,Rutland, Vermont-Tokyo, Japan)
This section is very important to understand the spiritul and philosophical back groud of The Way of Tea.
You will recognise that just tea drinking is the Art of Life, which finally developed into the Japanese Way of Tea, the Tea-ceremony.
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Picture: Blue Glazed Square Dish by Keitoku Kato
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