茶道の身心空間
Analysis of the Tea Ceremony System 2
2. The Performance and Installation
of the Way of Tea as a Healing System 2
2 H = f (p,i ) as the healing of the Way of Tea
We have already made the assumption of the two systems
of the body - mind system overlapping each other. *9
System 1: The outer construction of the body-mind relation = the cerebral cortex - the sensation-movement circuit - perception of the outside world,
sensation of movement (including perception of somatic interior),
the function of thinking.
System 2: The core structure of body and mind = brain stem,
the limbic system - autonomic nervous system - internal organs -
sensation and emotions of organs.
In accordance with our assumption the body becomes visible from looking at the physical side, and the mind appears from looking at the mental side of the entirety of the structure of systems 1 and 2. Also, in a different paper we summarized the performance (p) and installation (i) of healing based on Buddhist esoteric practices and verified roughly that that structure is suitable to a wider framework than Indian or Chinese style meditation. *10 This entire structure connects systems 1 and 2 on a deeper level, leading to stability of body and mind depending on the appropriate mutual effect of the performance and installation of body, breath, and mind. As a phenomenological experience, body and mind are guided towards p=i with the deepening of the healing.
One feature of the overlapping of systems 1 and 2 are physical habits. Everyday movements like walking or sitting to some extent happen consciously, but at the same time the individual parts of a movement sequence happen somewhat automatically and unconsciously, or even as a conditional reflex. Consequently, these physical habits connect the cortical and the autonomous systems, and some kind of change in physical habits deeply connects systems 1 and 2 and holds the possibility of the realization of healing.
Looking at it from this point of view, the Way of Tea is the compound of the host’s performance ceremoniously preparing tea, and the guests’ performance in walking the pathway to the tea house and partaking of the tea. These actions happen synergetically. And for each of these performances, the demands of body, breath, and mind are established as the form called etiquette of the Way of Tea, and are spacialized in the installation of the pathway, the tea room, the utensils etc. As the Way of Tea that Sen no Rikyû pursued is the very thing we define as healing, following our assumption, we should be able to detect the common formula of healing H = f ( p,i ) within the Way of Tea as well as the characteristics of the Way of Tea f, p, and i.
3 The performance and installation of “walking” in the Way of Tea
What a very unstable undertaking it is to stand and walk on two legs. Standing up straight with our physical shape means that our center of gravity becomes extremely high, and we have to constantly maintain the unstable balance of force. Nonetheless, although we usually do not especially pay attention to this, we do not fall. The act of walking is a situation where what we call systems 1 and 2 interwind in an extremely complex way.
The standing figure, risen without constraint and defying gravity, becoming the measure of all creation, is unique, and can be called the cosmology of humans created in the likeness of God. This kind of cosmology is tenuous for Asians.The way of Westerners to walk is said to be with stretched-out knees, putting down the heel first. Japanese people walk while bending their knees. As the middle part 去 of the character for ‘leg’ 脚 expresses the bent form of the leg, it can be said that this is a characteristic of the cultures using Chinese characters. (The German architect and urban planer) Bruno Taut compared the “Vitruvian Man’ of Leonardo da Vinci with the physique of Japanese people and stated that the physical center of the former is in the waist, while that of the Japanese is in the abdomen. So the legs of the Japanese seem to be getting energy from the ground.*11 The Western tendency to look at the proportions of the upright human body is scarce in Japan. Also, rather than saying that the center of the body while walking is in the abdomen, it is more accurate to say that it is in the Tan T’ien below the navel. Even today, in the practice of Noh, Tea Ceremony, and the martial arts, it is stressed to concentrate the Qi in the Tan T’ien below the navel. And in these practices, it is fundamental to slide one’s feet.
On the pathway to the tea room, the calculated setting of the stepping stones, the washbasin, and the central gate, and inside the tea room the tatami mats, the alcove, the arrangement of the teakettle etc. are the installations guiding the performance of “walking”.
The stepping stones control the length of the steps and the speed of the walking. In garden layouts it is considered common to use small-sized stones and lay five stones in one ken (1,818m), but in the garden around a tea house, six stones are placed in one ken.
Furthermore it is taught to cross one tatami mat inside the tea room in six steps (in the Urasenke school half a tatami is crossed in two steps), which means the guests’ steps are not even 40 centimeters long, forcing them to take quite short steps and walk slowly.
For this reason it is often thought that the stepping stones invite the guests to appreciate the view of the garden, but as Sen no Rikyû teaches “six parts walking, four parts viewing”, rather than the scenery, we must pay attention to the fact that the walking itself has the greater importance.
Also, as it is a rule in the Senke schools of Tea that the stepping stones must protrude about six centimeters from the ground, we must walk cautiously while minding the unevenness of these natural stones. This is impossible to achieve in Western-style walking.
As opposed to Takeno Jôô’s (1502 - 1555, merchant and tea master) thinking establishing that we should wear geta (wooden clogs) on the pathway, Sen no Rikyû preferred changing into leather-soled sandals. *12 Wearing leather-soled sandals it must have been easier to feel the stones and to deal with their unevenness, and to charge one’s Tan T’ien with Qi.
In this way there will be more stability while walking, the knees will be relaxed, the lower Tan T’ien will maintain a stable height, the spinal column will be straight and we will achieve what is called “upright” in T’ai Chi.
Walking is rhythm, and this rhythm leads to natural breathing, and induces a meditative spirit on the way to encountering the host.
4 The performance and installation of “sitting” in the Way of Tea
In the Way of Tea, “seiza” (sitting erect with one’s legs folded beneath oneself) is considered to be fundamental. But if it is not seiza with correct handling of body, breath, and mind, it is mere agony.
It is astonishing to know that seiza was the ordinary way to sit for Japanese people just a generation earlier.
Seiza on special occasions can also be seen in the Islamic sphere, Central Asia, and Ancient Greece, but it is only the Japanese who used it in everyday life.
As the background to the general spread of seiza, the popularization of Zen Buddhist style architecture incorporating shoin construction, the floors covered with tatami straw mats, and the popularity of the Tea Ceremony can be cited. The advancement of the manners of the Tea Ceremony in the meditation halls of Zen Buddhism temples resulted in the perfection of the Way of Tea. That process can be called the change from the lotus position (sitting alone) to seiza (sitting across from each other).
The etymology of the word tatami is tatamu (to fold) or tatamaru (to be folded up), so originally these straw mats were foldable. But in the diary ‘inryôkennichiroku’ of a Zen priest during Yoshimasa Ashikaga’s time (1436-1490), it is written that it was common before the Ônin War (1467-1477) for even an 18-mat hall to be covered wall-to-wall with tatami mats. So during that time tatami were spread all over the floor. *13 Tatami straw mats ever so slightly give way when stepped on, so as a footing they are unstable, but as the whole body weight concentrates on the lower legs in seiza and compresses them, it is a necessity for the floor to be yielding.
We conducted an analysis of the movements of the preparation of tea, and the movement of the upper body consists of a combination of forward and backwards movements and rotations to the left and right at the waist, all the while the lower body remains in a stable position in seiza. *14
In addition to putting a burden on the legs, seiza does not necessarily provide high stability. In order to perform the preparation of tea in a stable manner, the lower body must be planted firmly on the tatami, excessive strain of the upper body must be released as much as possible, and breathing and movements must be made to act in harmony with each other. Furthermore, through our movements we must lead our consciousness to a state of deeper meditation.
Only when all these factors have become a unity, a performance based on the ideology of Wabi cha is being achieved.
(9) Yasushi Nakajima: The Possibility of Esoteric Buddhism to Create a Space for Healing
Architectural Institute of Japan Kinki Branch, Research Report Collection no. 39, 1999
(10) Yasushi Nakajima: Creating a Space for Healing based on Buddhism
Architectural Institute of Japan Kinki Branch, Research Report Collection no. 40, 2000
Yasushi Nakajima, others: Eastern Meditation and Creation of its Space
National Institute of Technology, Akashi College, Research Journal no. 43, 2000
(11) Bruno Taut: People and Houses of Japan, Tokyo 1937
(12) Nanbo Sokei: op. cit.
(13) Hirotaro Ota: 床の間、岩波書店、1978
(14) Yasushi Nakajima, others: Eastern Meditation and Creation of its Space
National Institute of Technology, Akashi College, Research Journal no. 43, 2000
translated by Barbara Inui
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茶道のシステム分析 3
茶道の身心空間 top
Analysis of the Tea Ceremony System 1
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