茶道の身心空間
The Way of Tea
Analysis of the Tea Ceremony System 1
The Performance and Installation of the Way of Tea as Healing
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Tea Ceremony,especially Wabicha,
as a healing system and to synthesize it towards our meditation method
for healing.
We have already formulated the hypothesis that healing is the function of performance and installation, that is, H=f(p,i).
Therefore the analysis and synthesis of the Tea Ceremony system
are done based on this hypothesis.
In this study, our hypothesis H=f(p,i) is verified in the Tea Ceremony system called Wabicha.
The following conclusions are reached:
The healing system of the Tea Ceremony is in common with
the general oriental method of meditation regarding the structure of the system.
And the state of healing in Wabicha has been explained
based on Zen Buddhism, but the design method of performance and installation of Wabicha is rather based on Mikkyo esoteric Buddhism.
Opening: The Potential of the Tea Ceremony as Healing
The purpose of this paper is to detect a healing system inside the Tea Ceremony, to reassess it for present-day life, and to reconstruct it as a technique for healing.
Here we want to first of all define "healing" as a "deep, well-balanced state of body and mind", and to distinguish it from mere relaxation or the satisfaction of physiological desires.
As mentioned in the "Inyô jûichi no Kane" (Eleven Kane of Yin-Yang: the golden rules on how to arrange utensils and other objects in the tea room according to yin and yang) of the volume "Sumibiki" (Base Line) of the Nambôroku (Record of Nambô, a book of secrets credited to Sen no Rikyû ), the performance and installation of the Tea Ceremony must obey the traditional form. And what must be avoided most in this process are ego and self-centeredness.
In the training of the Tea Ceremony, the first step must be to throw away obstinacy and egotism and to follow the form, but ultimately we will distance ourselves from sticking to the form. The ideal state that we should reach by practicing is expressed as "the one rule of the heart" by Sen no Rikyû, meaning that one's mind should become unwavering. This is the very thing that we define as healing, i.e. a deep, well-balanced state of body and mind.
In this paper we will proceed to verify the healing of the Tea Ceremony as already instituted in our assumption H = f (p,i).
1.
The Tea Ceremony and the Installation of the Tea Room
as a Healing Therapy
Zen Master Eisai (1141-1215) wrote the two volumes of "Kissa Yôjôki”
(tea drinking cure), and Zen Master Dôgen (1200-1253)
studied the "Pure Rules of Baizhang" established by Baizhang Huaihai (Chinese master during the Tang Dynasty), and chose "Eihei Shingi" (first zen monastic code written in Japan) to establish the formal tea ceremony.
In contrast to this austere Way of the Tea, the lavish entertainment of
"tôcha" (Tea Contests) arose during the Chinese Sung Dynasty (960-1279) and also became popular in Japan. The arrangement of tôcha of the Shugo-daimyô Tôyo Sasaki of Ominokuni (present-day Shiga prefecture) was called "shoin no nana-sho kazari" (decoration of seven places in the shoin-style room) and is said to have become the basis of the etiquette of the tea ceremony. (Shoin originally meant a place for lectures and study of the sûtra within a temple, then later came to mean a drawing room or study. It forms the basis of today's traditional-style Japanese houses incorporating square posts and floors completely covered with tatami straw mats.)
In the mid-Muromachi period (1336-1573) the artist Nôami (1397-1471) used "Decoration of seven Chambers in the Shoin-style" as a reference to establish "Shoin no Daisu Kazari" (Decoration of Daisu portable shelf in the Shoin-style). Nôami designed an etiquette similar to today's while referring to the manners of the Ogasawara school, a traditional Japanese system of martial arts and etiquette formalized and handed down by the Ogasawara clan. It is said that he incorporated a lot of postures of Noh dance.
Jukô Murata (1423-1502) practiced zen meditation under Zen Master Ikkyû (1394-1481) and picked out the mental state of zen and the Tea Ceremony from the movements of the daily tea offering at the family Buddhist altar. Based on this state of mind, he reformed the tea ceremony room and utensils. Nôami had utilized a wide shoin-style study room, but Murata divided the study room into a space of four and a half tatami mats (9 sq. m) and enclosed it with a folding screen.
He advanced the preparations for the transition from the shoin-style Tea Ceremony to the wabi thatched-hut-style in various ways, but it can be said that it was Tea Master Shôô Takeno (1502-1555) who perfected Murata's ideal of the wabi thatched-hut-style. Wabi became the principle from the viewpoint of the art of tanka poetry and furthermore, because of Takeno, it became the word to express the acme of the Way of Tea. Sen no Rikyû (1522-1591) took over from Takeno and further deepened the idea of wabi, but in contrast to Takeno's reclusive wabi, Rikyû's wabi has some kind of vitality concealed in its stillness.
Shoin-style Tea (”Tea of the Palace”) had broken away from Tang-style etiquette in the mid-15th century, which meant that a form for Tea Ceremony sitting on tatami mats was established. As its characteristics the majestic world of Tang Dynasty goods at its center and the group of sequestered companions offering their services to the tea gathering can be cited. Because the shoin study room was not exclusively used for the tea ceremony, in general an adjoining area providing a chanoyudana or a chanoyudokoro (kitchen with shelves for the utensils) were available where the tea was prepared and then brought into the study.
The "Tea of the Palace" method is considered to have formed in Yoshinori Ashikaga's (1394-1441) era. As the shoin-style wide meeting place began to downsize, a room used solely for tea ceremony started to emerge. This tea-room downsized to four and a half mats, three mats and two mats, and inevitably changes developed in the way of the tea etiquette, too. The number in the guests also grew to be restricted, and the tea came to be made in the tea room by the host himself.
On the whole, we can bring the lineage of the tea ceremony to the following conclusion:
Shoin-style wide study room four-and-a-half-mat room small room
｜ ｜ ｜
formal semiformal informal
｜ ｜ ｜
Extroverted ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・ introverted
Here "introverted" means "the practice of facing one's own inside".
The tea ceremony often performed in large rooms in everyday situations these days is very colorful and extroverted. Practices with an atmosphere inviting you to look inward are few and far between. Rikyû said,"The roots of the tea ceremony lie in the daisu-style (formal style), but the informal tea called "Soh" cannot be surpassed when it comes to attaining spiritual depth." The healing system we are defining here is not found in the gorgeous and delightful shoin-style tea, but what we are aiming for is the introverted and inward-looking style of the wabi tea.
translated by Barbara Inui
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