Tea Ceremony Assignment due 3/15/201014:09 Mar 03 2010
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Assignment - Tea Ceremony Ritual - Due 3/15/2010
Posted by okasan ~ myimako at 12:53 AM on March 03, 2010
Assignemnt - You will "HOST" A Tea Ceremony for four guests, on the chalkboard you are to tell your fellow apprentice exactly by sequence order how to do that...The way you will do this is as the you were acting the part in a play. This assisgnment is to be completed no Later then March 15, 2010, I ask that you show your work, you may do this in the form of an attachment to the following email address thespicecupboardstaff@mail.com. The actual assignment itself will be posted in the Essay Category.
Everyone must complete this assignment absolutely no exceptions, The Serving of the tea is one of the most important services that a submissve geisha performs.
I have provided with information, and the website and shikomi website also give you vital information take notes, this is the most important assignment to date, I expect you to do a good job.
Watch the Video - Learn from it, experience it, and practice paractice practice - Actually perform the ceremony before you complete the assignment.
Japanese Terms: Tea Ceremony
a) Teahouse
teahouse – soan
straw mat – tatami
small entrance – nijiriguchi
preparation room/area – mizuya
b) Tea utensils
tea scoop – chashaku
bowl – chawan
whisk – chasen
cloth for wiping bowl – chakin
the host enters with the chawan (bowl), sits facing the kama and places the chawan against the wall. Inside the chawan a chasen (tea whisk) rests upon a chakin (white linen cloth used to wipe the chawan). Across the chawan is a chashaku (tea scoop) made of bamboo, wood, or ivory. The chashaku is patterned after the old Chinese medicine scoop. The chaire is moved to the right and the chawan is placed to the left in front of the mizusashi. The chawan is an open receptacle (yin), while the chaire is a closed receptacle (yang). These positions are opposite the yang and yin positions of the kama and mizusashi. The kama is hot (yang); the mizusashi is cold (yin).
The drinking of koicha is the central focus of the chaji. The guests have been prepared physically, mentally, and spiritually. Since one bowl is prepared for all of the guests to share, the drinking is an act of communion. The tea not only stimulates, but is thought to bring healing as well.
Psychic healing is often in the form of the unification of disparate emotions. Mythological resolutions act as unifications of opposing elements. The making of tea is a means of balancing the opposites of yin and yang, heaven and earth, the forces of male and female, light and dark, the outgoing and ingoing.
The host leaves and returns with a rinse water container (kensui). In this is a bamboo lid rest (futacki); the inverted cup of the water ladle (hishaku) rests on the edge of the kensui, its handle extending across the kensui. As an open receptacle, the kensui is yin, as is the cup of the hishaku in its upright position. But when the hishaku is inverted it becomes yang as it rests across the kensui.
The host sits in the center of the mat facing the preparation area. Although this area is ruled by the I Ching trigram for Heaven (yang), the number ascribed to it from the Lo Shu is 2, which represents Earth (yin). The left side of the body is yin, the right side is yang. As the host sits, the yang side faces the yin mizusashi and the yin side faces the yang kama.
After the host holds the hishaku in front of the heart for a moment of reflection in a position called ‘mirror ladle’ (kagami bishaku), the futaoki is placed near the ita on which the furo rests. The hishaku is placed on the futaoki with an audible gesture. Guests and host bow. The host is ready to make tea.
The ceiling of the tea house is in three levels: highest where the guests enter, middle where the guests sit, lowest where the tea is made. The name for ceiling in Japanese is lenjo, from characters meaning heaven and water well. Thus, the Well of Heaven is closest to the host when the host is making tea. The host then becomes the intermediary between heaven and earth; in other words, the host assumes the role of priest.
THE BALANCE OF OPPOSITE
The chawan and chaire are placed in front of the host where they now rest on a line separating yin and yang. The chaire is taken out of its bag and purified with a square silk cloth (fukusa) which represents the spirit of the host. The customary fukusa for a man is purple, for a woman, red. Purple, in Japan, is considered a yin color; red a yang color. Hence, the physical yang qualities of a man are offset by the yin of the fukusa and vice versa.
When the chaire is placed in froth of the mizusashi again it is put on the left and the chasen is put on the right. The chasen is always used with water and may be considered yin. These positions correspond to the yang and yin placements of the hot and cold water. After the chashaku and chawan are purified, the powdered dry tea (yang) is emptied into the chawan and mixed with water (yin) to become undifferentiated yin and yang or the Buddhist Void, the Primal Source of all things.
THE MOMENT OF MYSTERY
The traditional chawan used for koicha is a Raku-style bowl. This is a hand-crafted bowl made from a slab of clay drawn up on four sides and carved into its final form. They are irregular and jet black in color. The life-giving green of creation rests within the blackness of the Night of Chaos, the preamble to birth. The chawan is passed among the guests who each take three swallows. And so the Primal Substance enters them and they are energized by its presence.
What the hero seeks through his intercourse with (the gods and goddesses) is therefore not finally themselves, but their tea, the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahwey, the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage.
The tea is bitter (yang) but soon afterwards a sweet taste (yin) floods the mouth.
The guests look at the bowl more closely, then return it to the host. After another bow, the utensils are cleansed and returned to their original places. The guests ask to see the chaire, chashaku, and shifuku - often objects of great beauty and always of some significance to host and guests. The host takes the other tea equipment (except furo and kama) from the room while the guests leisurely look at the utensils. Later the host returns and explains what the objects are, then leaves with them.
THE RETURN
After the trials of the journey, ritual cleansing, initiation, death and rebirth, the hero at last fulfills the quest for an encounter with the Mystery. It is now time to prepare for the return.
If necessary, the host builds up the fire again, then serves a tray of sweets, different from those served before koicha. Using a different tea container and chawan, the host makes a bowl of thin tea (usucha) for each of the guests. The atmosphere of this part of the chaji is lighter, more conversational, but not frivolous. This tea is refreshment before departure.
After the utensils used for this tea are examined, the host and guests exchange final greetings. The guests leave and gather near the tsukubai, from which the ladle has been removed. They turn toward the nijiriguchi where the host is sitting and bow silently. The guests turn to leave and the host closes the nijiriguchi and locks it. The last guest locks the middle gate. The guests go directly to the waiting room. After a final bow, they depart one by one in the order of their seating in the tea room. When the last guest has left, the host closes and locks the main gate, the guests do not look back.
CONCLUSION
The symbolic life in some form is a prerequisite for psychic health. Without it the ego is alienated from its supra-personal source and falls victim to a kind of cosmic anxiety.
And there is cause for anxiety. The great accomplishments of modern technology have left us poised between the promise of a new world and complete destruction. The two marvels of electronics, the computer and the television, which presented the possibility of providing the least expensive means of education and cultural uplift to the largest number of people, have instead rendered millions intellectual zombies. We have been severed from the ‘ground of being’ by a brightly colored, dazzling display of electronic wizardry.
The weapons of war have become more powerful and more sophisticated. The great frontier of space, fraught with exciting potential, can just as easily become the last refuge for survivors, if any, of a planet bent on global suicide.
Today the problem is nothing if not to render the modern world spiritually significant. Nor can the great world religions, as at present understood, meet the requirement. For they have become associated with the causes of the factions, as instruments of propaganda and self congratulations. The universal triumph of the secular state has thrown all religious organizations into such a definitely secondary, and finally ineffectual, position that religious pantomime is hardly more today than a sanctimonious exercise.
Our split selves can be healed, but it will not be society which will initiate the process. The healing must come from within each of us, not from without. By tending to our wounded psyches individually, society as a whole will be mended also.
Each of the Japanese Ways strives to penetrate the nature of the eternal, to experience All-Oneness. But this only succeeds when the seeker on the Way gives up the self and experiences selflessness, muga, and emptiness, ku. It is a silence so deep as to be audible, a sound which: suddenly permits the listener to experience All-Oneness, once he has attained full maturity. And such: a silence also reigns over the Tea Way, which in the last analysis represents the Way to the Self.
The Way of Tea
is but one portion of the richly textured tapestry of life reflected in the myths of the world.
People needed and etiquette:
One host or hostess
4 guests; one of them is the main guest
Guests are dressed in kimonos or in formal Western clothes
It is considered rude to show up late! Be at your host’s house at least 20 minutes in
advance.
Be silent during the ceremony! Communication only happens through body language.
The guests observe what the host is doing �� it creates a peaceful, calm, almost
meditative atmosphere!
� Try to follow the rules as closely as possible! However, don’t worry if you make a
mistake; even the greatest tea masters make mistakes sometimes, and it takes a lot of
practice to know everything about a Japanese tea ceremony.
Utensils needed:
Cushions/chairs
Hot water
Tea
Tea bowls
Cloth
Whisk
Tea spoon
Sequence of Events:
-Guests walk through the tea garden and clean their hands in a water basin
-Guests approach the teahouse; before crawling through a small entrance, they take off
their shoes; inside they sit down on cushions/chairs
-Host bows before entering the tea-room
-Host brings in utensils: water jar, kettle, cloth, tea spoon, tea caddy (jar with tea powder,
held in the left hand), tea bowl with whisk inside (held in left hand) and places them
around the hearth
-Host sits in front of the hearth, where water is heated. Maybe tea can be heated in the
school kitchen or with the use of an electrical water heater
-Host rinses the bowl ceremoniously before powder and water can be mixed
-Host puts 3 spoons of powdered tea in bowl. If regular tea bags are used, the next step
can be omitted
-Host pours hot water over powder, and the mixture has to be stirred until it becomes
frothy (similar to beating eggs or whipping cream)
-Tea is first served to the main guest
-Main guest bows to fellow guests to apologize for being the first to drink
-Main guest takes the bowl �� proper way to hold tea bowl: put it on the palm of left hand
and protect it with right hand
-Main guest drinks, thereby complimenting the host on flavor, consistency and taste of
tea; empty bowl is returned to the host
-Host wipes the bowl with the linen cloth; then prepares tea for second guest, and so forth
Categories: Essay - Shikomi, Word of the Day Miniari
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