Chado in Context: Shakkei and Tidepool Tea

Shakkei (借景) is a term that refers to one of the three "types" of Japanese garden style: borrowed scenery. While Chinese in origin, one of the oldest examples of this arrangement that incorporates views of distant elements in the overall arrangement of the landscape features within a more immanent space is Sogenchi Teien (Sogen Pond Garden) at Tenryu-ji in Arashiyama.

I was delighted to be reminded of this idea when I was reflecting on my practice of "shadow-boxing" temae practice; going through the upper body gestures of a temae without the benefit of having the correct context -- including dogu, room, guest, fire/water, etc. -- whether seated or walking. Some times I even imagine this process without the benefit of actual movement.

Many years ago, I found myself visiting Esalen, the retreat center situated on the rugged Pacific Coast off PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) in Big Sur (south of Monterey CA). The sources of water are both salt and fresh. The waves crash against the coastal boulders with great dramatic effects of splashing, loud impact; in the distance, the sea level swells hypnotically. On the other hand, Esalen has been renown for its mineral springs since the indigenous people first inhabited the land. Soaking naked and silent in the cliff-side tubs of hot water under a full moon with the sparkling waves hundreds of feet below is one of the not-to-be-forgotten life experiences.

The atmosphere of this famed place of meditation, contemplation, education and deeply beautiful natural vistas and resources, is fully connected with that of the practice of temae.

I was at Esalen as a private guest, not participating in the many programs offered, but with full access to the baths, hiking, dining, dormitory facilities and the peacefulness of the natural landscape.

One day, I was walking to a distant point on the property, where I could see the mountains, large rock formations in the ocean and some man-made structures. I sat down and began to "shadow-box" a temae, incorporating a natural feature (rock formation) and a large built structure (perhaps the massage house or the main building) that were of equal prominence an approximately the size of the furokama and mizusashi at arms' length away. The coastal mountain range provided me with that essential background, separating that which is temaeza and that which is the "rest" of the universe. I have never forgotten the moment when I had to take the "roof" off the "building" to replenish the "kama". I still see the "bowl" of the "hishaku" held at arm's length with the background of the beautiful Santa Lucia Mountains in the distance!

Nothing Up My Sleeve: Managing Expectations When Requested to Do a Japanese Tea Ceremony

"We'd love you to do a tea ceremony for us ... "

I recently agreed to do two off-site (i.e. not in a room with tatami) chanoyu demonstrations, each one requiring a lot of imagination to create the intimacy one associates with the post-card ambience: that quiet garden in a Kyoto temple where lovely ladies in gorgeous kimono quietly serve a bowl of tea to guests who are seated seiza on tatami without the pain in their legs rushing up to their faces!

While I appreciate being asked and am more than happy to share what I have learned and enjoy about chado, I really have to stop for a moment and consider what it entails.

I will not take apart my chashitsu to schlep tatami on location; I don't own furniture, such as a misonodana; I don't believe that a simple ryakubon or chabako has the theatrical impact when presenting it to large groups.

Managing expectations, what a great magician can do, seems to be the most difficult aspect of complying with this request. If willing, a magician does the trick several times and then will slowly go through the motions and explain the ruse that her well-honed skills enable her to enact. It also requires the audience to suspend disbelief.

I have in fact told my "audiences" that I am here to manage their expectations.

I have explained the order of the day: I go over what I am about to do; I will do it; and, finally, nothing will happen. 

What do you "want" to see? What do you think "will occur"?  

Temae is a series of choreographed hand gestures that produces something very, very ordinary. One doesn't need to learn the gestures to produce something that everyone can easily take for granted and basically does every day themselves.

For this reason I usually don't put on kimono; I wear a haori for dramatic effect and might remove it; I wear a black turtleneck and black meditation pants, and tabi. The closest my hairdo will come to a geisha wig might be if I wore Mickey Mouse ears with chopstix through them.

Presto!? I only wish that it was so Presto! 

It always feels like car camping: I have to set up a makeshift mizuya, often where there is no potable running water or electricity for the hotplate in the furo; sumi is usually out of the question (no indoor fires, expensive and hard to get in the USA).

But I did them. One of the demonstrations -- with just a demo guest; no tea would be served to the audience -- was moved from a university classroom to an outdoor concrete patio (so that more people could watch and several budgets tapped for the honorarium). The other was in a museum classroom where 25+ audience members would be served tea as well as would the one guest.

In all cases I had one hour to do the presentation, including the set / clean up in the first case. The kama didn't have time to cool down completely before I had to leave. There wasn't a place, except for the bathroom, to clean the bowls if serving tea to "real" guests.

I deeply appreciate my helpers in all cases. When I offered to my assistants the opportunity to not wear kimono, Nobie mentioned that it was the mizuya-cho's responsibility to make the host look good.

I learned a lot from this statement. Thanks! Gassho!

What is most remarkable, however, is that the temae itself seems to draw people into a single mindedness, even if they are seated on chairs and the activity is on the floor. Folks mention it afterwards. I'm humbled.

It seems different when chajin decide to do a chakai in an "experimental" situation. I'll write more about this in a future post.

Post Script

A month later I received a call from an artist whose friends were putting together a tea house in Griffith Park, the city park, in a secret-sort-of place on a hiking trail.

They thought they wanted to have a tea ceremony, but not actually all of it, but sort-of so that about 20 people could share a meditative experience together overlooking Los Angeles from the mountain top. No heating. No hot water.

They wanted to "give back" to the people of Los Angeles. Everything, from the lumber to the hot water would have to be hiked up the hill on the paths.

I suggested that the process of chanoyu involved an intimate relationship of host and guest, and the venue would be unmanageable. I advised them to get some tea bags and sit quietly together. I'm glad I didn't do it, but happy they proceeded with some plans to do what they could (tea bag, thermos). I eventually hiked up to see the venue before it was removed by the park service crew. Lovely hut with an internal bench and several "windows" cut into the walls. It was more "outhouse" but was well respected by those who made the trek.

The Imprint of Lamed: Learning = Teaching

According to one of my teachers, Gilla Nissan, the Hebrew letter lamed ל

has kabbalistic meaning of both teaching and learning, education. The form of the lamed represents the aspiration of the truly devoted pupil to learn from the mouth of the teacher. In the “Letters of Rabbi Akiva,” the full spelling of the letter's name, i.e. lamed (lamed-mem-dalet) is read as short for the phrase: “a heart that understands knowledge” (lev meivin da’at). Thus, it is often heard that a student of Jewish knowledge will say that she "learns" with a particular teacher, rather than as we might say in English, we learn from that teacher, implying that the teacher and the knowledge are separate; one takes away knowledge. In these situations, teacher and student are engaged in the exchange, rather than a more dualistic, disconnected give and take. 

I was thinking about this letter when reflecting on my experiences in the classes known  as oku-no-okeiko, advanced lessons that focus on the temae of the daisu. These procedures are not (supposedly) recorded in a book; one must learn directly in the presence of a teacher. Not every teacher feels comfortable (or is granted license) to teach this "level" (above shikaden), so when available, they are usually held on the fourth week of the month. We must wear kimono and be prepared to spend a long time in seiza position. 

These daisudemae procedures for koicha are to the previous series of classes what a symphony is to a student etude, as they incorporate pieces of many of the other procedures linked together with a refined extended elegance that is hard to describe. These are said to be the original procedures that were abbreviated / disassembled into parts that were taught separately as temae in themselves. 

It takes many years before a student is introduced to the daisudemae, and these procedures are practiced with a teacher at most 12 times during the full year, with the modifications to the ro/furo as is normal per the appropriate season. Thus, it takes a long time to actually inculcate the procedures, even using well-practiced steps.

Out of respect for the effort that my sensei had invested in explaining to me about the procedures, I remember being quite nervous before my oku classes because I didn't remember the variations and connections between the various aspects of a daisudemae. So I relied on her guidance once again to take me through the steps.

LIkewise, I was charged with hosting a chashitsu biraki, opening of my tea room and celebrating my having been granted chamei, professional name. I had never hosted a chakai, much less a chaji, so I had many, many questions for my teacher about how to create such an even worthy of the senior students and other teachers who would be the guests in my home. 

In both these cases, I felt that I was never alone in my learning, and even when sensei said nothing during my temae I knew that we were doing it together then, and will forever, together. 

No Short Cuts. Show Your Mind: The Simple and Small

Note: The cat ate my original text. I will try to recreate it. It was really good. There were links and everything. Even compared Hasidic tales with tea as inspired by two important recently published books:

Rodger Kamenentz's Burnt Books: Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav and Franz Kafka
Allen S. Weiss' Zen Landscapes: Perspectives on Japanese Gardens and Ceramics

I guess all I wanted to say was that Matsumoto Sosei, my sensei since 1985, said many important things, but two stand out in particular in light of these wonderful books:

1. "No short cuts" ... every gesture needs to be accomplished for the entire temae to be considered complete. Like walking in the garden toward the tea hut. A simple path, the destination is in sight, but one really needs to step on each stone to get there.

Weiss's book will be reviewed in this blog in later posts, as I anticipate there are many, many points that he makes about how tea and gardens are compressions of the larger mandala of existence, here and now, but only here ... just now. To go through the nijiri-guchi, we have to get "small" to see it all.

2. "Show your mind" ... I was putting down the tea scoop on the tea container during a class early in my practice "career" and just before the bamboo touched the lacquer lid, she said that. No other explanation. Never repeated it since then. She doesn't teach "Zen", but the point is well taken: every gesture on the outside reflects our inner nature.

Hasidism, Judaism's mystical route, as taught in the tales of Rabbi Nachman seems to be a "simple practice", one that has a path for both the chacham, the sophisticate, and the tam, simple person. Yet, for adults, fond of complexities, it is quite accommodating to that end. We must not over - think the temae; eventually one's can rely on the practice to accomplish itself while the mind just sits still and watches.

Kamenentz notes that Reb Nachman's proclivity for hisbodedeus, personal yearning and communicating directly with the Source of nature by going out in nature, is the "practice of the broken heart". I have found that a 'broken heart' can be healed at the same time one refreshes the kama by pouring in water from the mizusashi. Here the hishaku can truly become an extension of the soul. In the same way, one does not pour water into the kama, rather one pours it into the water.