“The way of tea” here denotes the Japanese Tea Ceremony and the Chinese Art of Tea. The way of tea may instigate spiritual or philosophical inspirations but it is not religion or philosophy. The way of tea involves a few essential elements: tea, water, tea ware, ritual, and the state of mind. Nonetheless, it is the tea ware and tea ritual that cultivate the state of mind. Hence, the way of tea is a way of xiushen yangxing 修身養性 “training body and cultivating mind.” The problem is the unsatisfactory translation of xiushen yangxing, a problem that seems to parallel the case of translating Foucault's term surveiller in English. Yet all the nuances, such as infinitive, supervise, observe, impersonal, imperative that suggest surveiller as discipline may appropriately suggest xiushen yangxing also as discipline. On this account, the way of tea is a discipline. Without tea ware and tea ritual there is no way of tea indeed. Tea ware and tea ritual change over time, and the change of tea ware and tea ritual is subject to political-cultural and social-economic conditions.

When we read the phrase “the way of tea,” the impression that often comes to mind is of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, chanoyu 茶の湯 or chadō 茶道. We envision a tea maker whisking powdered tea in a composed and sedulous setting. We will not often associate chanoyu with the Chinese Song dynasty diancha 點茶 (whisking powdered tea). Nor will we link the Japanese sencha 煎茶 to the Chinese jiancha 煎 茶 (boiling tea). Notwithstanding, sinologist Victor H. Mair states in his book The True History of Tea: “Just as chanoyu harks back to the Song custom of whisking tea, sencha traces its roots to China and the early Ming, when the Hongwu emperor issued his prohibition of milled wax tea.”[1]

Some tea historians argue that the Japanese Zen Master Eisai Zenji 栄西禅師 (1141-1215) should be credited with the beginning of the tea tradition in Japan while others disagree. What is indisputable in Eisai's argument is in The Treatise on Drinking Tea for Life Cultivation, which states: “In the Great Country (of the Song China) 大國, they drink tea, as a result of which there are no heart diseases and people live long lives. Our country is full of sickly looking, skinny persons, and this is simply because we do not drink tea.”[2] In addition to Eisai's admiration of “the Great Country” and its tea tradition, it is also said that Eisai and his student Dōgen Zenji 道元禅師 (1200-1253) instigated bringing Linji/Rinzai 臨濟宗 and Caodong/Soto 曹洞宗 Buddhism to Japan along with the Song style of whisking tea, the tea related karamono 唐物, and the Chinese objects of arts and crafts.

Japanese tea historian Murai Yasuhiko 村井康彥, however, avows a distinctive view: “The use of matcha (powdered tea) was transmitted from China and developed independently as chanoyu in Japan.”[3] Yasuhiko contends that the Song Buddhist monastic codes, Chanyuan Qinggui 《禪苑清規》Rules and Etiquettes of Chan Temples compiled by Buddhist monk Zong Yi 宗頤 in 1103, exerted great influence on and codified with what is called the qinggui/shingi 清規 rules at the Japanese Zen temples with the help of Chinese Buddhist missionaries Lanxi Daolong/ Rankei Dōryū 兰溪道隆 (1213-1278) and Qingzhuo Zhengcheng/ Seisetsu Shōchō 清拙正澄 (1274–1339). Chali/sarei 茶禮 “the tea rituals and rules” were a part of the qinggui/shingi rules. In this sense, Yasuhiko declares: “chanoyu emerged from the sarei of Zen.”[4] Like filtering a clear stream of Japanese cultural practice from the muddy flood of Chinese cultural influence, Yasuhiko focuses on “Japaneseness,” that is, he seeks historical factors and events that validate the idea of an independent development of Japanese culture. He concludes that when shingi rules were adopted at the Japanese Zen temples during the mid-fourteenth century, chanoyu was then created. In other words, the development of the Japanese Tea Ceremony was a Japanese cultural development based on the Japanese Zen monastic rules.

Like filtering a clear stream of Japanese cultural practice in the muddy flood of Chinese cultural influence, Yasuhiko focuses on the “Japaneseness,” i.e. seeking historical factors and events that validate the idea of an independent development of Japanese culture. He concludes that when shingi rules were adopted at the Japanese Zen temples during the mid-fourteenth century, chanoyu was then created. In other words, the development of the Japanese Tea Ceremony was a Japanese cultural development based on the Japanese Zen monastic rules.

Tea drinking had long become a Buddhist monastic practice since the Tang dynasty (618-907). In the ten volumes of Rules and Etiquettes of Chan Temples, volume five is entirely devoted to detailed tea rituals and rules. Minute tea rules permeate the entire text, such as: “One must peacefully hold the tea bowl and the tea bowl stand with both hands in front of one's chest, not too low or too high... one must not blow air to one's tea (in order to cool down one's tea), one must not drop the tea bowl, nor should one make noise when one drinks tea..."[5] In 1355, monk Dehui 德輝 compiled the Yuan Imperial Court version Baizhang Qinggui《百丈清規》that was originally composed during the Tang dynasty. The section "To tea gathering" “赴茶湯” states:

When the abbot and the titled monks offer tea, such rituals and rules are extremely important, one must not neglect. If one accepts the invitation, one must clearly acknowledge the time and location in order to avoid hastiness. If one is in sickness or urgency (in the toilet), one must submit one’s excuse to the host. However, when the abbot offers tea, one should never decline. If one neglects such tea, one will be dismissed from the monastery.[6]

We have known for a long time that largely nonphonetic scripts like Chinese or Japanese included phonetic elements from a very early period. They remained structurally dominated by the ideogram or algebra, and thus we have a testimony to a powerful movement of civilization developing outside of all logocentrism.[7] Chinese and Japanese did not and still do not write or read in phonetics in everyday life. Without the actual characters 禪, 清規, 茶禮, the Romanized phonetics Chan/Zen, qinggui/shingi, and chali/sarei are nothing but Romanized phonetics. In effect, the Romanized phonetics have denied and effaced the original characters, gained their own lives, and created a “double” reality, which in turn gave the phonetic language users convenience as well as misunderstanding and misinterpretation for their Chinese or Japanese sightings or expeditions.

The question never gets a good answer or the same answer but it should always be asked: When Chan Buddhism and mocha were transmitted to Japan, how and what discrepancies (misinterpretations and/or reinterpretations) occurred between the transmitted 禪 (chan)，末茶 (mocha), and 茶禮 (chali) and the received 禪 (zen), 抹茶 (matcha), and 茶禮 (sarei)? Despite the phonetic differences between Chan and Zen, Mocha and Matcha, Chali and Sarei, to say that "chanoyu emerged from the sarei of Zen" would seem to lead to the idea of a choice of phonetic speech. It is then all about speech. As Foucault used to say: "We must ceaselessly speak, for as long and as loudly as this indefinite and deafening noise—longer and more loudly so that in mixing our voices with it we might succeed—if not in silencing and mastering it—in modulating its futility into the endless murmuring we call literature."[8] We have murmured great literatures of histories including tea history. Of course, this is not to imply a word game. It implies what Habermas, summarizing Foucault’s view, termed the twentieth century “enterprise” of the human sciences:

The human sciences are pseudo-sciences because they do not see through the compulsion to a problematic doubling of the self-relating subject; they are not in a position to acknowledge the structurally generated will to self-knowledge and self-reification and thus they are also unable to free themselves from the power that drives them.[9]

Or so, in Foucault's words, what we believe about the continuity of the history of ideas, i.e. the human sciences—in short, our history and our cultural traditions—is only reconstructed by the restitution of our knowledge, thought, belief, and practice in the course of time, or in the specific given place and time. [10] To this end, whether the Song whisking of powdered tea and the Song Buddhist monastic rules of tea exerted influence on the development of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, or whether the Japanese Tea Ceremony was a single development from the Japanese Zen monastic rules, it certainly was a way of drinking powdered tea. The way of the Tea Ceremony has been the whisking powdered tea ever since (no one has attempted to add milk to it).

Yasuhiko states, in the early history of Japanese Tea Ceremony shoin chanoyu 書院茶道, which was established in the early Muramachi shogunate 室町幕府 (1336-1573), something called karamono suki (taste for Chinese objects of art and craft) was developed. The Chinese paintings, scrolls of calligraphy, and ceramics—especially tea bowls, incense burners, and flower vases—were in great demand, thus “the decoration of the shoin room with karamono and the preparation of tea using karamono utensils” became essential.[11] To decorate the tea room with the imported Chinese objects of art and craft, and to prepare tea with the Chinese tea wares, certainly created overall financial strain on the Japanese side. Interestingly, Yasuhiko argues that the karamono suki actually might have only served a decorative purpose:

The transmission of shingi was accompanied by the accumulation at Zen temples of many things of Buddhism, including paintings, scrolls of calligraphy, tenmoku tea bowls. What interests us, however, is whether these things were immediately sought after by the people of Japan and became objects of aesthetic appreciation.[12]

According to Yasuhiko, the shoin chanyu idea, the highest form of tea, was the tea of “karamono magnificence,” however, it might have only been the “decorative furnishings” without aesthetic value. As the Japanese-trained East Asian art historian Ming-liang Hsieh 謝明良 states, some of the jian ware (also known as tenmoku), the black-brown-glazed Chinese tea bowls, which have been considered as “the national treasures” by Japanese, could be the Chinese imperial gifts granted to Japan by the Chinese emperors. According to The Historical Documents on Trade between Japan and Ming China 《日明勘合貿易史料》, the Ming emperor Yongle (1360-1424) granted to Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408) “Eleven jian ware tea bowls with gilt rims” on January 16th, 1406. The Great Ming Statutes of Wanli《萬曆大明會典》also confirms that the imperial gifts of “the ancient musical instruments, scrolls of calligraphy, and paintings,” were granted to Japan during Yongle’s time.[13]

Furthermore, the Medieval Japanese book The Imperial Artifact Records 《君臺觀左右帳記》Kundaikan Sōchō Ki attributed to 能阿弥 Nōami (1397-1471), states that the jian ware tea bowls were in extreme demand at the time. This book ranks Jian ware as follows: 矅變 Yohen, “iridescent,” is the supreme sacred vessel, and is thus rarely seen in the world. It is black-glazed with small star-like dots that are surrounded by jade-like iridescence. It is as beautiful as silk, valued at 10,000 bolts of silk. 油滴 Yuteki, the “oil spot,” the lesser treasure, is valued at 5,000 bolts of silk. 建盞 Kansan (hare's fur glazed), the standard jian ware tea bowl, is valued at 3,000 bolts of silk. Even 鱉盞, the Jizhou tortoiseshell glazed tea bowl, is valued at 1,000 bolts of silk.[14]

In Medieval China and Japan, a bolt of silk would be equivalent to a 30-40 foot long and 3- to 4-foot-wide roll of silk today. Would it be too costly to prepare tea with a Chinese tea bowl that costs several thousand rolls of silk just for decorative purpose? Or were the Medieval Japanese just too wealthy? When Buddhist monk Eichū 永忠 served tea to Emperor Saga (嵯峨天皇 Saga-tennō 786 – 842), he complained about the poor quality of the food served during mass at the Buddhist temples and recommended that the Emperor improve it. Yasuhiko says, “No doubt Eichū, who had lived so long in China, made this recommendation because of his enthusiasm for the food in Chinese temples.”[15] This comment reminds us of the remarks made by Eisai, who also lived long in China: “our country is full of sickly looking, skinny persons.” It is thus reasonable to suspect that the Japanese living standard was not as high as the Chinese at the time. It is also reasonable to suspect that it would not be possible for a common monk or a lay person to have tea in a Chinese tea bowl valued at several thousand rolls of silk only for decorative purpose. In fact, it was a great and costly task for the eminent monks and nobility to achieve the “karamono magnificence.” Clearly, Yasuhiko's statement is a prelude to his own scholarly argument to fund a Japanese ideological expedition to “shift from karamono to wamono,” from Chinese to Japanese. In other words: to mix and modify Chinese things into Japanese things so to demonstrate and prove the independent Japanese development.

Japanese cultural historian Kumakura Isao 熊倉功夫 confirms:

In Shuko's (also known as Murata Jukō 村田珠光 1423-1502) time, the highest form of tea was the tea of “karamono magnificence,” which involved objects imported from China. Shuko, however, understood also the beauty of the “cold and withered,” as found in renga, and the beauty of the imperfect and incomplete. He perceived this latter beauty in such wamono (Japanese things) as Shigaraki and Bizen ceramic ware, which, compared to the art and craft of China, was imperfect and rough. Shuko sought to discover a new beauty in the contrasting taste of kara (Chinese) perfection and wa (Japanese) crudeness and imperfection.[16]

Rikyū (Sen no Rikyū 千利休 1522-1591), the greatest chanoyu master, however, did not stop at harmonizing and mixing. Dynamically he interpreted the idea of blending Japanese and Chinese tastes as a quest for beauty that neither possessed. This was the beauty of “Korean things” (Kōrai-mono), which were claimed to have a warmth unknown to the works of China and a delicacy of texture and craftsmanship not found in Japan. It was an ideal beauty that accorded with the ideal of wabi.[17] We are informed by Isao’s essay about Rikyū that there was “the contrasting taste of kara (Chinese) perfection and wa (Japanese) crudeness and imperfection.” Was there also a contrast between the Chinese sophistication and perfection and the Japanese crudeness and imperfection in terms of know-how, the ceramic technology? The term wabi侘び originally refers to the miserable feeling that comes from material deprivation. According to Yasuhiko, wabi was taken into chanoyu and gained its aesthetic value at the height of the craze for mono-suki (the taste for material things).[18]

It is logical to interpret the craze for mono-suki in this way: when the craze for the taste of material things was unfulfilled, the craze only increased. The aesthetic at the center of the Japanese Tea Ceremony was based on things, thus the development of the Japanese Tea Ceremony was based on tea ware and rituals, which were subject to social and economic conditions. As Yasuhiko clarifies, “chanoyu encountered wabi as an aesthetic based on things. Wabi was, indeed, the final point in the development of mono-suki.”[19] In other words, the foundation of chanoyu was all but developing a particular taste for tea ware and related objects. Although Shuko established Sōan chanoyu 草庵茶道, also known as Wabicha 侘び茶道, Rikyū indeed completed the essence of Wabicha and brought the Japanese Tea Ceremony to its zenith. However, it was the daimyo 大名, or warlords like Oda Nobunaga (織田信長 1534-1582), Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉 1537-1598), Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康 1543-1616), and the others alike who patronized and made the height of Japanese Tea Ceremony during the most violent time in the Japanese history. The American religious historian Theodore M. Ludwig remarks:

Why were these men of power attracted to the tea art to such an extent that they not only amassed hoards of valuable tea utensils but immersed themselves in the discipline and practice of chanoyu? And why did the leading masters of the art, like Rikyū, drawn to the centers of power, willingly serve in positions and places that seemed even to some contemporaries to contradict the basic values and ideals of chanoyu?[20]

The contradiction between the simple, cold 冷, crude, withered 枯, and unrestrained wabi tea and the sophisticated, magnificent, restrained daimyo tea (shoin cha) is sharp and clear. It is the dichotomy between the “transformatory” and the “confirmatory” in the established social order, in short, the gap between the poor and the rich, powerlessness and power. Idealists may say that the wabi tea functions as a ritual to promote humility, equality, and thus to overcome violence, i.e., to close the gap. In reality, the gap can never be closed, and this is why the daimyos and wabi masters (Hideyoshi and Rikyū, for instance) were deeply involved in both. As Ludwig remarks, the value of using the chanoyu masters in political and economic negotiations has been well recognized. But it is also important to recognize the use of chanoyu as ritual process in the context of the new societal structure:

Ritual, whether religious, quasi-religious, or secular, has essential public functions in societies: It communicates values and structures, it reduces conflict by affording a means of mutual recognition, and it dramatizes consensus regarding roles and thus motivates actions for healthy intragroup bonding.[21]

The practice of Ritual is nonetheless subject to political-cultural and social-economic conditions. The relationship between Hideyoshi and Rikyū, and the death of Rikyū, confirm that the change of tea ware and tea ritual is subject to the above conditions. The simple and undeniable facts are that Rikyū was Hideyoshi's tea master first, and then became one of Hideyoshi's closest confidants. Hideyoshi ordered him to commit “ritual suicide” after Rikyū became the most eminent tea master in his lordship. Historians have speculated on the actual causes for Rikyū's death ever since. The popular assumptions are as follows: Rikyū placed a life-sized statue of himself in the Kimmōkaku, a structural addition to the main gate of the Daitokuji (大徳寺 the temple of Great Virtue) that he and his family donated; Rikyū refused to give his daughter to Hideyoshi as a concubine; Rikyū demanded exorbitant prices for his tea utensils.

China began to exert influence over Japan fundamentally since the early Tang dynasty. From 607 to 894, Japan dispatched about 20 imperial delegations (Kentō-shi 遣唐使) to China. Each delegation consisted of several dozens to several hundreds of people, including imperial envoys, scholars, monks, and merchants. The Annotations of Shiji 《 史記正義》 by the Tang scholar Zhang Shoujie (張守節 early 8th century) has a trivial entry: “The Empress Wu (武則天 624-705) changed the name of the country Wo to the name of the country Japan 武后改倭國為日本國。”[22] Its contemporary sources, The Old Tang History 《舊唐書 》, The New Tang History《新唐書》, and later The Song History《宋史》, reveal a similar message: the name of the country Japan was changed from Wo to Japan because the Wo people were self-conscious about the name of their country after they learned more of the Chinese language.[23] The discussion about the meaning of the character 倭 between Chinese and Japanese has been notoriously inconclusive, but the message consists of the simple question of how much China exerted influence over Japan historically.

According to Japanese scholar Enomoto Wataru 榎本涉, after the mission of Kentō-shi ceased in 894, the Japanese trading and the unofficial delegations to China massively increased. Roughly from 500-1500, the Chinese influenced/trained Japanese officials, scholars, monks, and merchants returned to Japan with the Chinese imperial administrative systems, advanced science and technology, literature, arts and crafts, religious doctrines and practices, and hundreds of thousands of ships loaded with Chinese goods. Concurrently, the ideological and financial strains on Japan were immeasurably accumulated. In tandem, more than a dozen Chinese dynasties were, as in the game of musical chairs, replacing one after another. Subsequently, the Chinese cultural and commercial exportations to Japan were impeded by the historical developments. By the 1500s, the Chinese jian ware tea bowls, for instance, not only cost thousands of bolts of silk but were also hard to obtain in Japan since the Chinese stopped making them by the end of the 1300s.

Wabi, as we know, also refers to “the miserable feeling that comes from material deprivation.” Under the constant threat of ideological and material deprivation, the Japanese would have felt greatly wabi, or miserable. Therefore, when a tea master knew with certainty that he could no longer get the most essential element, a good Chinese tea bowl, for his chanoyu, he would definitely have felt wabi. As a logical result, wabi was taken into chanoyu, and its aesthetic became most valued at the height of the craze for the taste for material things: creating a new taste for tea bowls that were obtainable and economical was the only logical conclusion.

Rikyū, as a devoted Buddhist who accepted the miserable feeling that comes from material deprivation or wabi, accepted the essential Buddhist concept of Impermanence. Taking a crude, imperfect, and locally made tea bowl, bringing it into the world of chanoyu, and making it a wabi tea bowl, wabi chanoyu was then the reasonable outcome. Of course, this is speculation, but it is not entirely unreasonable. As Isao points out, “Rikyū instilled chanoyu with a new kind of wabi taste. And if there is one aspect of this taste that comes most readily to mind as something Rikyū alone discovered and nurtured, it is the beauty of raku pottery.”[24] This statement reminds us that one of the speculated causes for Rikyū’s death was that he demanded exorbitant prices for his tea utensils.

Yasuhiko concludes wabicha, the highest form of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, in a very precise Japanese way:

Wabi does not deny things, but rather to penetrate as far as possible to their true essence and therein to discern beauty. In the beauty of the plain lies the ultimate sense of beauty that the Japanese have discovered. It is a beauty of restraint. Wabi goes beyond the aesthetics of things and becomes a state of mind.[25]

Regarding the Chinese tradition and influence, or the “karamono magnificence” and the expensive Chinese jian ware tea bowls, Yasuhiko clarifies:

We must note, however, in regard to the development of this wabiwamono aesthetic, the karamono suki and wamono suki were not diametrically opposing tastes. It is true that karamono were considered at the time to be objects of richness and perfection and were contrasted with the rough and simple beauty of wamono. But since many karamono were used in Zen temples to suggest the Zen state of enlightenment, it is dangerous to say there were no aesthetic correspondences between karamono and wamono. Indeed, it appears that in some sense the aesthetic of wamono simplicity was nurtured within the long tradition of karamono suki.[26]

The Chinese tea bowls were turned into replicas and sacraments, and became the Japanese “National Treasures.” We may wonder why the Japanese have accepted these foreign objects as national treasures? Yasuhiko concludes:

I doubt that there is any other form of artistic conduct that is so indulgent and extravagant. But it is not just a matter of accumulating things. A major feature of chanoyu is the arranging of these things—that is, the suitable display of them according to the time, place, and people involved. In other words, the artistic conduct of chanoyu is closely related to the ethic of entertaining people, and in this sense chanoyu cannot simply be categorized as an art.[27]

This is to say that Rikyū reformed the rules of the game: cease to seek and use the magnificent but expensive and deprived Chinese things, and instead, beautify, ritualize, and seek the crude and imperfect (and, to a certain extent, impaired) Japanese things. It was good for the unique Japanese aesthetic and for the Japanese economy. Most importantly, to be illuminated in the sense of the miserable feeling that comes from material deprivation, or wabi, and to utilize the sense of wabi, are means to the immediacy of awakening.

The earliest book on the Japanese Tea Ceremony in English was written by Okakura Kakuzō (岡倉覚三1862-1913), who immigrated to the USA in 1904. In The Book of Tea, Kakuzō calls the Japanese Tea Ceremony “a cup of humanity.” Although the contemporary scholars do not take Kakuzō’s works seriously, he nevertheless exerted great influence on Martin Heidegger, Ezra Pound, and other Western cultural tycoons. According to Kakuzō, before the hour of Rikyū’s death, he had his last “cup of humanity,” performed his last wabicha ritual, and uttered: “Never again shall this cup, polluted by the lips of misfortune, be used by man.” He spoke, and shattered his beloved wabi tea bowl.[28]

Benjamin Schwartz once called Confucius a “cultural hero.”[29] We may call Rikyū a “heroic cultural entrepreneur.” Rikyū’s suicide made his “cup of humanity” a manifesto, which completed and perfected chanoyu, and at the same time, cursed chanoyu forever. Chanoyu became a ritual of simulation, in other words, a social means of collective operation since Rikyū’s death. As Yasuhiko states, during the Japanese Tea Ceremony development, “what was at first a pursuit of men spread also among women, and today women are in fact predominant in chanoyu.”[30] Particularly during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, through the hands of Japanese courtesans and geishas, chanoyu became a national and social-psychological defense against Western imperialism. Rejecting westernization and withdrawing into native tradition thus helped to consolidate the Japanese identity.

In 1884, the Ukiyo-e (or the images of floating world) artist Toyohara Kunichika 豊原国周 (1835-1900) made “the Fifty-four Modern Feelings 現時五十四情” series depicting chanoyu, kadō 華道, flower arrangement, Kakemono 掛物, hanging scroll paintings, and calligraphy (and “the way of smoking pipe 煙道”). These wood block prints were designed precisely to convey “the modern feelings” instead of the “ancient feelings” by courtesans and geishas. The intrinsic spiritual agent of tea that was brought to Japan from Song China, and avowed by the early Zen masters, was replaced by Rikyū's heroic-cultural ritual and economic-entrepreneurialendeavor first, and then by militaristic, meticulous, and rigid ritual and collective social operation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One may wonder: has chanoyu become the accent of the culture of courtesans and geishas? or has the culture of courtesans and geishas become the accent of chanoyu?

Fouco B. Fann 2010