Minh PhanRSP Final

Chado: Japanese Tea Ceremony and the Steps toward World Peace

The number of American military casualties in Iraq recently hit the three-thousandmark. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, countless Iraqi lives were lost as violencecaused by sectarian differences between Sunnis and Shiites ravaged the country. Around theworld, more news of violence continues to surface. In the fall of 2006, deaths from the thirty-four day war between Hezbollah and Israel totaled around one thousand. Everyday, children inUganda are pitted against each other as the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) abducts and trainthem as child soldiers to be used in the Ugandan Civil War. At home, all is not well. In themidst of the immigration debate, ethnic tension deepened by misunderstanding fueledunnecessary police brutality at an immigration rally in Los Angeles last May. Everywhere in theworld it seems, sectarian violence and crimes committed between those with different beliefsare on the rise. With such hostility in today’s time, an important question is warranted: is therea realistic method that can help to prevent, reduce, or perhaps even resolve said conflicts?It is well known that tea can serve a medicinal purpose, helping to prevent disease andto promote longevity. According to Fling, tea contains the flavonoid EGCg “a potentantioxidant that helps prevent cell damage, which is believed to contribute to over 40 diseases”(Fling 34). Drinking a cup of tea once a day can lower cholesterol and blood pressure level,reduce the risk of heart attacks, and help prevent cancer, strokes, and other chronic or fataldisease (Fling 34). However, the act and ritual of serving tea can be important as well. SenSoshitsu, the current fifteenth head of the Urasenke school of

chado

(the tea way), has promotedhis motto “Peace through sharing a bowl of tea”, believing that the Japanese tea ritual not onlyhas the power to foster peace within the individual but also between individuals as well (

“Tea: A Tradition that Promises to Bring Both Vigor and Tranquility to the World”)

. This motto, therefore, brings the topic of this paper to a question first raised during an interview with thegrandmaster himself:

In the post-Cold War world, we have seen the outbreak of many regionalconflicts around the globe. During these turbulent periods, how can chado help to create a feeling of peacefulness and a spirit of sharing in people's hearts

(

“Tea: A Tradition that Promises to Bring BothVigor and Tranquility to the World”

)

This article proposes that such use of

chado

is not onlypossible but also representative of its application in the past. Although opponents point outthat the “tea way” can both create interpersonal tension as well as relieve it, “the sincerity andfaithfulness with which one follows the principles of tea seems to make all the difference”(Plutschow).The tea ritual has its roots in China where the act of drinking tea was already popularlong before the birth of Christ. During the eighth and ninth centuries, tea was brought back to Japan by traveling Buddhist monks and was generally enjoyed by the nobles of the imperialcourt. At this time, tea was in the form of

dancha

and its method of preparation consisted

simply of “boiling tea [and] adding ginger to suit one’s taste” (

“History of Tea”

). However,according to the San Francisco Urasenke Foundation, this type of preparation did not “agreewith the Japanese taste because no further records refer to tea for about two hundred years”.Later, around 1191 A.D, Eisai, a Japanese monk who was studying in Chinese temples, brought back a new form of Buddhism, Zen, and a new form of tea,

matcha

, which he presented in his book Kissa Yojoki, a Japanese interpretation of Chinese tea etiquette. Thus begins theintroduction of tea and Zen and their transformation within the Japanese culture. As timepassed, the art of chado or chanoyu began to evolve to what it is today. In fourteenth century Japan, tea drinking was prevalent in both solemn ceremonies of Zen temples, where tea playedan important role in religious rituals, as well as in taverns where gambling took place. By thefifteenth century it had developed into an intricate process. It is in the sixteenth century,however, that Sen Rikyu, the most famous of all tea masters, began to set forth the “elements,architecture, and art” that eventually developed and still remain relevant to what is calledchado today. Therefore, in order to understand the basis of this article, we must take a closerlook, a history in context, at the purpose of the tea ritual during Sen Rikyu’s time.According to Herbert Plutschow, an important concept that can be applied to the teaceremony is Rene Girard’s theory that a ritual exists “as a means to create order over the lurkingdangers of violence and chaos”. With this in mind, it is reasonable to say that a ritual is areaction “to something that is dangerous and negative”, and attempt to create order bysubjecting “violence within ritual control and limits”. If rituals didn’t exist to keep confusionand disorder in check, “potentially chaotic behavior might otherwise get the upper hand insociety”, and thus prevents humans to live peacefully (Plutschow). This idea is relevant to thetea ceremony since it was during the Warring States, a period of fighting among daimyo for thecontrol of Japan, when Sen Rikyu first served as tea master for the daimyo Obunaga and laterthe daimyo Hideyoshi who succeeded in uniting Japan. Tea during this time was used to createa sense of “consensus and peace”. Tea huts and tearooms became sacred, known as the onlyplace where samurais would voluntarily leave their weapons at the door. The entrance to thetearoom consists simply of a low opening, symbolizing “a place of tranquility where warlords,merchants, and monks met on equal footing to relish silence, the beauties of a garden, and asimple bowl of tea”. In Plutschow’s words, “battlefields and tearooms were strict opposites,symbolizing respectively, war and peace”. The warlord Hideyoshi made good use of suchopposites, electing to have a portable teahouse on the battlefield itself. The practice of chado before battles in turn served two purposes: one to unnerve the enemies and two as a tool forsamurais to “center themselves and be prepared to fight and to die” in the battle that will ensue.The art of tea continued after Sen Rikyu’s death. At the end of the Warring States, whenHideyoshi finally brought Japan under one rule, the practice of chado helped usher in an era ofpeace (Plutschow).It was Kakuzo Okakura, in his book The Book of Tea, who first spoke of

chado

in contextof religion, writing that the way of tea “is a religion of aesthetics” (1). Echoing Okakura’swords, grandmaster Sen Soshitsu said in 1991 in his book Tea Life, Tea Mind that it is the“secularization of Zen and is compatible with all religious faiths” (12). Although all of these

statements are correct, it is Fling who best summarizes the versatility and diversity of theinfluences on the way of tea with respect to religion: “

Chado’s

history is intimately bound withZen Buddhism, and it has also been related to Taoist balance of yin and yang, Shinto purity, andConfucian propriety” (30). Thus, this brings to focus the four main principles of tea

—

(harmony),

kei

(respect),

sei

(purity), and

jaku

(tranquility)

—

a precedent first set by Sen Rikyu,and how they can help the practitioners of chado “realize tranquility in communion with otherswithin the environment” (Sen Soshitsu 41).

represents the Taoist concept of harmony with nature and with people. In order toprevent possible conflicts, the hosts select guests with temperaments that will coincide and beharmonious with each other. Even the more simple acts associated with the tea ceremony, fromchoosing the utensils to presenting the food, must be done in order to foster harmony not only between the guest and the host but with nature itself. As noted by Fling, the ideal is expressed by the phrase

muhinshu

, “with

referring to ‘nothingness’,

hin

to the ‘guest’, and

shu

to the‘host’, thus indicating an empty selflessness, free from desire to impress or compete, andenabling a merging and transcending of individual egos and roles” (30). It is with

that thefirst steps towards resolving interpersonal conflict must be taken.

Kei

relies on the Confucian doctrine of respect through sincere thoughts and gentlewords. Though all are equal in the tearoom, the practice of bowing and turning of utensils helpto foster respect and minimize potential for conflict. Such respect “recognizes an emptiness,impermanence, constant fluctuation, interpenetration, and oneness behind the apparentseparateness and multiplicity of people and things and thus includes an openness to nature andobjects as well as to persons” (Fling 30). The hospitality of the host and the concern of theguests for each other and the host stem from this idea.Purifying acts in the ceremony not only serve a practical purpose but also a spiritualone. The Shinto concept of

sei

represents not only the “actual and ceremonial purity of thesetting and utensils”, but also, more importantly, the “purity of the heart” (Fling 31). Whenoffering tea to each other, the host and the guests must have pure intentions, “without desire forgain or favor”. Steps included in the tea ceremony are symbolic reminders of

sei.

The mirrorposition of the guests’ and host’s water ladle “mirror the heart rather than the face, to bringawareness to preparing the tea with a pure heart” (Fling 31). Purity of the senses also comesfrom washing one’s hands and face while listening to the sounds of the garden at the end of the

roji,

a path that leads up to the tearoom.When combined together,

kei

, and

sei

set forth

jaku

satori

, the “enlightenment”often sought out by the practitioners of Buddhism and in particular those of the Zen sect. Zenmonks believe that

satori

comes from avoiding the use of reason and using meditation toachieve

mushin

or no mind. As mentioned before, the ideal of

satori

is reflected in the

roji

path, areference to the Buddhist tale of “escaping from the burning house which is the world, and amiddle gate beyond which one is supposed to leave the mundane world behind” (Plutschow).The “mini-enlightenment” that one experiences during tea is a result of harmony, respect, and