| Taste the difference! |
CHAPTER I
The Cup of Humanity
CHAPTER II
The Schools of Tea
CHAPTER III
Taoism and Zennism
CHAPTER IV
The Tea-Room
CHAPTER V
Art Appreciation
CHAPTER VI
Flowers
CHAPTER VII
Tea-Masters
CHAPTER I
The Cup of Humanity
Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as
one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism--Teaism. Teaism
is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and
harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as
it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.
The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the ordinary acceptance of the term, for it expresses conjointly with
ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is
economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it
defines our sense of proportion to the universe. It represents the true spirit of Eastern democracy by making all its
votaries aristocrats in taste.
The long isolation of Japan from the rest of the world, so conducive to introspection, has been highly favourable to the
development of Teaism. Our home and habits, costume and cuisine, porcelain, lacquer, painting--our very literature--all
have been subject to its influence. No student of Japanese culture could ever ignore its presence. It has permeated the
elegance of noble boudoirs, and entered the abode of the humble. Our peasants have learned to arrange flowers, our
meanest labourer to offer his salutation to the rocks and waters. In our common parlance we speak of the man "with no
tea" in him, when he is insusceptible to the serio-comic interests of the personal drama. Again we stigmatise the untamed
aesthete who, regardless of the mundane tragedy, runs riot in the springtide of emancipated emotions, as one "with too
much tea" in him.
The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. But
when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained
to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.
Mankind has done worse. In the worship of Bacchus, we have sacrificed too freely; and we have even transfigured the
gory image of Mars. Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and revel in the warm stream of
sympathy that flows from her altar? In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet
reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Laotse, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself.
Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in
others. The average Westerner, in his sleek complacency, will see in the tea ceremony but another instance of the
thousand and one oddities which constitute the quaintness and childishness of the East to him. He was wont to regard
Japan as barbarous while she indulged in the gentle arts of peace: he calls her civilised since she began to commit
wholesale slaughter on Manchurian battlefields. Much comment has been given lately to the Code of the Samurai, --the
Art of Death which makes our soldiers exult in self- sacrifice; but scarcely any attention has been drawn to Teaism, which
represents so much of our Art of Life. Fain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilisation were to be based on
the gruesome glory of war. Fain would we await the time when due respect shall be paid to our art and ideals.
When will the West understand, or try to understand, the East? We Asiatics are often appalled by the curious web of
facts and fancies which has been woven concerning us. We are pictured as living on the perfume of the lotus, if not on
mice and cockroaches. It is either impotent fanaticism or else abject voluptuousness. Indian spirituality has been derided
as ignorance, Chinese sobriety as stupidity, Japanese patriotism as the result of fatalism. It has been said that we are
less sensible to pain and wounds on account of the callousness of our nervous organisation!
Why not amuse yourselves at our expense? Asia returns the compliment. There would be further food for merriment if
you were to know all that we have imagined and written about you. All the glamour of the perspective is there, all the
unconscious homage of wonder, all the silent resentment of the new and undefined. You have been loaded with virtues
too refined to be envied, and accused of crimes too picturesque to be condemned. Our writers in the past--the wise men
who knew--informed us that you had bushy tails somewhere hidden in your garments, and often dined off a fricassee of
newborn babes! Nay, we had something worse against you: we used to think you the most impracticable people on the
earth, for you were said to preach what you never practiced.
Such misconceptions are fast vanishing amongst us. Commerce has forced the European tongues on many an Eastern
port. Asiatic youths are flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education. Our insight does not
penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of
your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats
comprised the attainment of your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they evince our
willingness to approach the West on our knees. Unfortunately the Western attitude is unfavourable to the understanding
of the East. The Christian missionary goes to impart, but not to receive. Your information is based on the meagre
translations of our immense literature, if not on the unreliable anecdotes of passing travellers. It is rarely that the
chivalrous pen of a Lafcadio Hearn or that of the author of "The Web of Indian Life" enlivens the Oriental darkness with
the torch of our own sentiments.
Perhaps I betray my own ignorance of the Tea Cult by being so outspoken. Its very spirit of politeness exacts that you
say what you are expected to say, and no more. But I am not to be a polite Teaist. So much harm has been done already
by the mutual misunderstanding of the New World and the Old, that one need not apologise for contributing his tithe to
the furtherance of a better understanding. The beginning of the twentieth century would have been spared the spectacle
of sanguinary warfare if Russia had condescended to know Japan better. What dire consequences to humanity lie in the
contemptuous ignoring of Eastern problems! European imperialism, which does not disdain to raise the absurd cry of the
Yellow Peril, fails to realise that Asia may also awaken to the cruel sense of the White Disaster. You may laugh at us for
having "too much tea," but may we not suspect that you of the West have "no tea" in your constitution?
Let us stop the continents from hurling epigrams at each other, and be sadder if not wiser by the mutual gain of half a
hemisphere. We have developed along different lines, but there is no reason why one should not supplement the other.
You have gained expansion at the cost of restlessness; we have created a harmony which is weak against aggression.
Will you believe it?--the East is better off in some respects than the West!
Strangely enough humanity has so far met in the tea-cup. It is the only Asiatic ceremonial which commands universal
esteem. The white man has scoffed at our religion and our morals, but has accepted the brown beverage without
hesitation. The afternoon tea is now an important function in Western society. In the delicate clatter of trays and saucers,
in the soft rustle of feminine hospitality, in the common catechism about cream and sugar, we know that the Worship of
Tea is established beyond question. The philosophic resignation of the guest to the fate awaiting him in the dubious
decoction proclaims that in this single instance the Oriental spirit reigns supreme.
The earliest record of tea in European writing is said to be found in the statement of an Arabian traveller, that after the
year 879 the main sources of revenue in Canton were the duties on salt and tea. Marco Polo records the deposition of a
Chinese minister of finance in 1285 for his arbitrary augmentation of the tea-taxes. It was at the period of the great
discoveries that the European people began to know more about the extreme Orient. At the end of the sixteenth century
the Hollanders brought the news that a pleasant drink was made in the East from the leaves of a bush. The travellers
Giovanni Batista Ramusio (1559), L. Almeida (1576), Maffeno (1588), Tareira (1610), also mentioned tea. In the
last-named year ships of the Dutch East India Company brought the first tea into Europe. It was known in France in
1636, and reached Russia in 1638. England welcomed it in 1650 and spoke of it as "That excellent and by all physicians
approved China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, and by other nations Tay, alias Tee."
Like all good things of the world, the propaganda of Tea met with opposition. Heretics like Henry Saville (1678)
denounced drinking it as a filthy custom. Jonas Hanway (Essay on Tea, 1756) said that men seemed to lose their stature
and comeliness, women their beauty through the use of tea. Its cost at the start (about fifteen or sixteen shillings a
pound) forbade popular consumption, and made it "regalia for high treatments and entertainments, presents being made
thereof to princes and grandees." Yet in spite of such drawbacks tea-drinking spread with marvellous rapidity. The
coffee-houses of London in the early half of the eighteenth century became, in fact, tea-houses, the resort of wits like
Addison and Steele, who beguiled themselves over their "dish of tea." The beverage soon became a necessity of life--a
taxable matter. We are reminded in this connection what an important part it plays in modern history. Colonial America
resigned herself to oppression until human endurance gave way before the heavy duties laid on Tea. American
independence dates from the throwing of tea-chests into Boston harbour.
There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible and capable of idealisation. Western humourists
were not slow to mingle the fragrance of their thought with its aroma. It has not the arrogance of wine, the self-
consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence of cocoa. Already in 1711, says the Spectator: "I would therefore
in a particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour every
morning for tea, bread and butter; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually
served up and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-equipage." Samuel Johnson draws his own portrait as "a hardened
and shameless tea drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of the fascinating plant; who with
tea amused the evening, with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning."
Charles Lamb, a professed devotee, sounded the true note of Teaism when he wrote that the greatest pleasure he knew
was to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that
you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet
thoroughly, and is thus humour itself,--the smile of philosophy. All genuine humourists may in this sense be called
tea-philosophers,--Thackeray, for instance, and of course, Shakespeare. The poets of the Decadence (when was not
the world in decadence?), in their protests against materialism, have, to a certain extent, also opened the way to Teaism.
Perhaps nowadays it is our demure contemplation of the Imperfect that the West and the East can meet in mutual
consolation.
The Taoists relate that at the great beginning of the No-Beginning, Spirit and Matter met in mortal combat. At last the
Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth. The Titan, in his
death agony, struck his head against the solar vault and shivered the blue dome of jade into fragments. The stars lost
their nests, the moon wandered aimlessly among the wild chasms of the night. In despair the Yellow Emperor sought far
and wide for the repairer of the Heavens. He had not to search in vain. Out of the Eastern sea rose a queen, the divine
Niuka, horn-crowned and dragon-tailed, resplendent in her armor of fire. She welded the five-coloured rainbow in her
magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese sky. But it is told that Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firmament.
Thus began the dualism of love--two souls rolling through space and never at rest until they join together to complete
the universe. Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace.
The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean struggle for wealth and power. The world is
groping in the shadow of egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced
for the sake of utility. The East and the West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the
jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a
sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the
pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.
CHAPTER II
The Schools of Tea
Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest qualities. We have good and bad tea, as we have
good and bad paintings--generally the latter. There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea, as there are no rules
for producing a Titian or a Sesson. Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and
heat, its own method of telling a story. The truly beautiful must always be in it. How much do we not suffer through the
constant failure of society to recognise this simple and fundamental law of art and life; Lichilai, a Sung poet, has sadly
remarked that there were three most deplorable things in the world: the spoiling of fine youths through false education,
the degradation of fine art through vulgar admiration, and the utter waste of fine tea through incompetent manipulation.
Like Art, Tea has its periods and its schools. Its evolution may be roughly divided into three main stages: the Boiled Tea,
the Whipped Tea, and the Steeped Tea. We moderns belong to the last school. These several methods of appreciating
the beverage are indicative of the spirit of the age in which they prevailed. For life is an expression, our unconscious
actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought. Confucius said that "man hideth not." Perhaps we reveal
ourselves too much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal. The tiny incidents of daily routine
are as much a commentary of racial ideals as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry. Even as the difference in favorite
vintage marks the separate idiosyncrasies of different periods and nationalities of Europe, so the Tea-ideals
characterise the various moods of Oriental culture. The Cake-tea which was boiled, the Powdered-tea which was
whipped, the Leaf-tea which was steeped, mark the distinct emotional impulses of the Tang, the Sung, and the Ming
dynasties of China. If we were inclined to borrow the much-abused terminology of art-classification, we might designate
them respectively, the Classic, the Romantic, and the Naturalistic schools of Tea.
The tea-plant, a native of southern China, was known from very early times to Chinese botany and medicine. It is alluded
to in the classics under the various names of Tou, Tseh, Chung, Kha, and Ming, and was highly prized for possessing
the virtues of relieving fatigue, delighting the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight. It was not only
administered as an internal dose, but often applied externally in form of paste to alleviate rheumatic pains. The Taoists
claimed it as an important ingredient of the elixir of immortality. The Buddhists used it extensively to prevent drowsiness
during their long hours of meditation.
By the fourth and fifth centuries Tea became a favourite beverage among the inhabitants of the Yangtse-Kiang valley. It
was about this time that modern ideograph Cha was coined, evidently a corruption of the classic Tou. The poets of the
southern dynasties have left some fragments of their fervent adoration of the "froth of the liquid jade." Then emperors
used to bestow some rare preparation of the leaves on their high ministers as a reward for eminent services. Yet the
method of drinking tea at this stage was primitive in the extreme. The leaves were steamed, crushed in a mortar, made
into a cake, and boiled together with rice, ginger, salt, orange peel, spices, milk, and sometimes with onions! The custom
obtains at the present day among the Thibetans and various Mongolian tribes, who make a curious syrup of these
ingredients. The use of lemon slices by the Russians, who learned to take tea from the Chinese caravansaries, points to
the survival of the ancient method.
It needed the genius of the Tang dynasty to emancipate Tea from its crude state and lead to its final idealization. With
Luwuh in the middle of the eighth century we have our first apostle of tea. He was born in an age when Buddhism,
Taoism, and Confucianism were seeking mutual synthesis. The pantheistic symbolism of the time was urging one to
mirror the Universal in the Particular. Luwuh, a poet, saw in the Tea-service the same harmony and order which reigned
through all things. In his celebrated work, the "Chaking" (The Holy Scripture of Tea) he formulated the Code of Tea. He
has since been worshipped as the tutelary god of the Chinese tea merchants.
The "Chaking" consists of three volumes and ten chapters. In the first chapter Luwuh treats of the nature of the
tea-plant, in the second of the implements for gathering the leaves, in the third of the selection of the leaves. According
to him the best quality of the leaves must have "creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of
a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like
fine earth newly swept by rain."
The fourth chapter is devoted to the enumeration and description of the twenty-four members of the tea-equipage,
beginning with the tripod brazier and ending with the bamboo cabinet for containing all these utensils. Here we notice
Luwuh's predilection for Taoist symbolism. Also it is interesting to observe in this connection the influence of tea on
Chinese ceramics. The Celestial porcelain, as is well known, had its origin in an attempt to reproduce the exquisite shade
of jade, resulting, in the Tang dynasty, in the blue glaze of the south, and the white glaze of the north. Luwuh considered
the blue as the ideal colour for the tea-cup, as it lent additional greenness to the beverage, whereas the white made it
look pinkish and distasteful. It was because he used cake-tea. Later on, when the tea masters of Sung took to the
powdered tea, they preferred heavy bowls of blue-black and dark brown. The Mings, with their steeped tea, rejoiced in
light ware of white porcelain.
In the fifth chapter Luwuh describes the method of making tea. He eliminates all ingredients except salt. He dwells also
on the much-discussed question of the choice of water and the degree of boiling it. According to him, the mountain
spring is the best, the river water and the spring water come next in the order of excellence. There are three stages of
boiling: the first boil is when the little bubbles like the eye of fishes swim on the surface; the second boil is when the
bubbles are like crystal beads rolling in a fountain; the third boil is when the billows surge wildly in the kettle. The
Cake-tea is roasted before the fire until it becomes soft like a baby's arm and is shredded into powder between pieces of
fine paper. Salt is put in the first boil, the tea in the second. At the third boil, a dipperful of cold water is poured into the
kettle to settle the tea and revive the "youth of the water." Then the beverage was poured into cups and drunk. O
nectar! The filmy leaflet hung like scaly clouds in a serene sky or floated like waterlilies on emerald streams. It was of
such a beverage that Lotung, a Tang poet, wrote: "The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my
loneliness, the third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some five thousand volumes of odd ideographs.
The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration,--all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am
purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. The seventh cup--ah, but I could take no more! I only feel
the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves. Where is Horaisan? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away
thither."
The remaining chapters of the "Chaking" treat of the vulgarity of the ordinary methods of tea-drinking, a historical
summary of illustrious tea-drinkers, the famous tea plantations of China, the possible variations of the tea-service and
illustrations of the tea-utensils. The last is unfortunately lost.
The appearance of the "Chaking" must have created considerable sensation at the time. Luwuh was befriended by the
Emperor Taisung (763-779), and his fame attracted many followers. Some exquisites were said to have been able to
detect the tea made by Luwuh from that of his disciples. One mandarin has his name immortalised by his failure to
appreciate the tea of this great master.
In the Sung dynasty the whipped tea came into fashion and created the second school of Tea. The leaves were ground
to fine powder in a small stone mill, and the preparation was whipped in hot water by a delicate whisk made of split
bamboo. The new process led to some change in the tea-equippage of Luwuh, as well as in the choice of leaves. Salt
was discarded forever. The enthusiasm of the Sung people for tea knew no bounds. Epicures vied with each other in
discovering new varieties, and regular tournaments were held to decide their superiority. The Emperor Kiasung
(1101-1124), who was too great an artist to be a well-behaved monarch, lavished his treasures on the attainment of rare
species. He himself wrote a dissertation on the twenty kinds of tea, among which he prizes the "white tea" as of the rarest
and finest quality.
The tea-ideal of the Sungs differed from the Tangs even as their notion of life differed. They sought to actualize what
their predecessors tried to symbolise. To the Neo-Confucian mind the cosmic law was not reflected in the phenomenal
world, but the phenomenal world was the cosmic law itself. Aeons were but moments--Nirvana always within grasp. The
Taoist conception that immortality lay in the eternal change permeated all their modes of thought. It was the process, not
the deed, which was interesting. It was the completing, not the completion, which was really vital. Man came thus at once
face to face with nature. A new meaning grew into the art of life. The tea began to be not a poetical pastime, but one of
the methods of self-realisation. Wangyucheng eulogised tea as "flooding his soul like a direct appeal, that its delicate
bitterness reminded him of the aftertaste of a good counsel." Sotumpa wrote of the strength of the immaculate purity in
tea which defied corruption as a truly virtuous man. Among the Buddhists, the southern Zen sect, which incorporated so
much of Taoist doctrines, formulated an elaborate ritual of tea. The monks gathered before the image of Bodhi Dharma
and drank tea out of a single bowl with the profound formality of a holy sacrament. It was this Zen ritual which finally
developed into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth century.
Unfortunately the sudden outburst of the Mongol tribes in the thirteenth century which resulted in the devastation and
conquest of China under the barbaric rule of the Yuen Emperors, destroyed all the fruits of Sung culture. The native
dynasty of the Mings which attempted re-nationalisation in the middle of the fifteenth century was harassed by internal
troubles, and China again fell under the alien rule of the Manchus in the seventeenth century. Manners and customs
changed to leave no vestige of the former times. The powdered tea is entirely forgotten. We find a Ming commentator at
loss to recall the shape of the tea whisk mentioned in one of the Sung classics. Tea is now taken by steeping the leaves
in hot water in a bowl or cup. The reason why the Western world is innocent of the older method of drinking tea is
explained by the fact that Europe knew it only at the close of the Ming dynasty.
To the latter-day Chinese tea is a delicious beverage, but not an ideal. The long woes of his country have robbed him of
the zest for the meaning of life. He has become modern, that is to say, old and disenchanted. He has lost that sublime
faith in illusions which constitutes the eternal youth and vigour of the poets and ancients. He is an eclectic and politely
accepts the traditions of the universe. He toys with Nature, but does not condescend to conquer or worship her. His
Leaf-tea is often wonderful with its flower-like aroma, but the romance of the Tang and Sung ceremonials are not to be
found in his cup.
Japan, which followed closely on the footsteps of Chinese civilisation, has known the tea in all its three stages. As early
as the year 729 we read of the Emperor Shomu giving tea to one hundred monks at his palace in Nara. The leaves were
probably imported by our ambassadors to the Tang Court and prepared in the way then in fashion. In 801 the monk
Saicho brought back some seeds and planted them in Yeisan. Many tea-gardens are heard of in succeeding centuries,
as well as the delight of the aristocracy and priesthood in the beverage. The Sung tea reached us in 1191 with the
return of Yeisai-zenji, who went there to study the southern Zen school. The new seeds which he carried home were
successfully planted in three places, one of which, the Uji district near Kioto, bears still the name of producing the best
tea in the world. The southern Zen spread with marvellous rapidity, and with it the tea-ritual and the tea-ideal of the
Sung. By the fifteenth century, under the patronage of the Shogun, Ashikaga-Voshinasa, the tea ceremony is fully
constituted and made into an independent and secular performance. Since then Teaism is fully established in Japan.
The use of the steeped tea of the later China is comparatively recent among us, being only known since the middle of
the seventeenth century. It has replaced the powdered tea in ordinary consumption, though the latter still continues to
hold its place as the tea of teas.
It is in the Japanese tea ceremony that we see the culmination of tea-ideals. Our successful resistance of the Mongol
invasion in 1281 had enabled us to carry on the Sung movement so disastrously cut off in China itself through the
nomadic inroad. Tea with us became more than an idealisation of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life. The
beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest
joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane. The tea-room was an oasis in the dreary waste
of existence where weary travellers could meet to drink from the common spring of art- appreciation. The ceremony was
an improvised drama whose plot was woven about the tea, the flowers, and the paintings. Not a colour to disturb the tone
of the room, not a sound to mar the rhythm of things, not a gesture to obtrude on the harmony, not a word to break the
unity of the surroundings, all movements to be performed simply and naturally--such were the aims of the tea- ceremony.
And strangely enough it was often successful. A subtle philosophy lay behind it all. Teaism was Taoism in disguise.
CHAPTER III
Taoism and Zennism
The connection of Zennism with tea is proverbial. We have already remarked that the tea-ceremony was a development
of the Zen ritual. The name of Laotse, the founder of Taoism, is also intimately associated with the history of tea. It is
written in the Chinese school manual concerning the origin of habits and customs that the ceremony of offering tea to a
guest began with Kwanyin, a well-known disciple of Laotse, who first at the gate of the Han Pass presented to the "Old
Philosopher" a cup of the golden elixir. We shall not stop to discuss the authenticity of such tales, which are valuable,
however, as confirming the early use of the beverage by the Taoists. Our interest in Taoism and Zennism here lies
mainly in those ideas regarding life and art which are so embodied in what we call Teaism.
It is to be regretted that as yet there appears to be no adequate presentation of the Taoists and Zen doctrines in any
foreign language, though we have had several laudable attempts.
Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a
brocade,--all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is there
which is easy to expound? The ancient sages never put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for
they were afraid of uttering half-truths. They began by talking like fools and ended by making their hearers wise. Laotse
himself, with his quaint humour, says, "If people of inferior intelligence hear of the Tao, they laugh immensely. It would
not be the Tao unless they laughed at it."
The Tao literally means a Path. It has been severally translated as the Way, the Absolute, the Law, Nature, Supreme
Reason, the Mode. These renderings are not incorrect, for the use of the term by the Taoists differs according to the
subject-matter of the inquiry. Laotse himself spoke of it thus: "There is a thing which is all-containing, which was born
before the existence of Heaven and Earth. How silent! How solitary! It stands alone and changes not. It revolves without
danger to itself and is the mother of the universe. I do not know its name and so call it the Path. With reluctance I call it
the Infinite. Infinity is the Fleeting, the Fleeting is the Vanishing, the Vanishing is the Reverting." The Tao is in the
Passage rather than the Path. It is the spirit of Cosmic Change,--the eternal growth which returns upon itself to produce
new forms. It recoils upon itself like the dragon, the beloved symbol of the Taoists. It folds and unfolds as do the clouds.
The Tao might be spoken of as the Great Transition. Subjectively it is the Mood of the Universe. Its Absolute is the
Relative.
It should be remembered in the first place that Taoism, like its legitimate successor Zennism, represents the
individualistic trend of the Southern Chinese mind in contra-distinction to the communism of Northern China which
expressed itself in Confucianism. The Middle Kingdom is as vast as Europe and has a differentiation of idiosyncrasies
marked by the two great river systems which traverse it. The Yangste-Kiang and Hoang- Ho are respectively the
Mediterranean and the Baltic. Even to-day, in spite of centuries of unification, the Southern Celestial differs in his
thoughts and beliefs from his Northern brother as a member of the Latin race differs from the Teuton. In ancient days,
when communication was even more difficult than at present, and especially during the feudal period, this difference in
thought was most pronounced. The art and poetry of the one breathes an atmosphere entirely distinct from that of the
other. In Laotse and his followers and in Kutsugen, the forerunner of the Yangtse-Kiang nature-poets, we find an
idealism quite inconsistent with the prosaic ethical notions of their contemporary northern writers. Laotse lived five
centuries before the Christian Era.
The germ of Taoist speculation may be found long before the advent of Laotse, surnamed the Long-Eared. The archaic
records of China, especially the Book of Changes, foreshadow his thought. But the great respect paid to the laws and
customs of that classic period of Chinese civilisation which culminated with the establishment of the Chow dynasty in the
sixteenth century B.C., kept the development of individualism in check for a long while, so that it was not until after the
disintegration of the Chow dynasty and the establishment of innumerable independent kingdoms that it was able to
blossom forth in the luxuriance of free-thought. Laotse and Soshi (Chuangtse) were both Southerners and the greatest
exponents of the New School. On the other hand, Confucius with his numerous disciples aimed at retaining ancestral
conventions. Taoism cannot be understood without some knowledge of Confucianism and vice versa.
We have said that the Taoist Absolute was the Relative. In ethics the Taoist railed at the laws and the moral codes of
society, for to them right and wrong were but relative terms. Definition is always limitation--the "fixed" and "unchangeless"
are but terms expressive of a stoppage of growth. Said Kuzugen,--"The Sages move the world." Our standards of
morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance of
communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the mighty
delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly. We
are wicked because we are frightfully self-conscious. We nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth to
others; we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the
world when the world itself is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is everywhere. Honour and Chastity! Behold the
complacent salesman retailing the Good and True. One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts
thrive marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap, --a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable
citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be
knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so
much? Is it not but an instinct derived from the days of slavery?
The virility of the idea lies not less in its power of breaking through contemporary thought than in its capacity for
dominating subsequent movements. Taoism was an active power during the Shin dynasty, that epoch of Chinese
unification from which we derive the name China. It would be interesting had we time to note its influence on
contemporary thinkers, the mathemeticians, writers on law and war, the mystics and alchemists and the later
nature-poets of the Yangste-Kiang. We should not even ignore those speculators on Reality who doubted whether a
white horse was real because he was white, or because he was solid, nor the Conversationalists of the Six dynasties
who, like the Zen philosophers, revelled in discussions concerning the Pure and the Abstract. Above all we should pay
homage to Taoism for what it has done toward the formation of the Celestial character, giving to it a certain capacity for
reserve and refinement as "warm as jade." Chinese history is full of instances in which the votaries of Taoism, princes
and hermits alike, followed with varied and interesting results the teachings of their creed. The tale will not be without its
quota of instruction and amusement. It will be rich in anecdotes, allegories, and aphorisms. We would fain be on
speaking terms with the delightful emperor who never died because he had never lived. We may ride the wind with
Liehtse and find it absolutely quiet because we ourselves are the wind, or dwell in mid-air with the Aged one of the
Hoang-Ho, who lived betwixt Heaven and Earth because he was subject to neither the one nor the other. Even in that
grotesque apology for Taoism which we find in China at the present day, we can revel in a wealth of imagery impossible
to find in any other cult.
But the chief contribution of Taoism to Asiatic life has been in the realm of aesthetics. Chinese historians have always
spoken of Taoism as the "art of being in the world," for it deals with the present--ourselves. It is in us that God meets with
Nature, and yesterday parts from to-morrow. The Present is the moving Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the Relative.
Relativity seeks Adjustment; Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Taoism
accepts the mundane as it is and, unlike the Confucians or the Buddhists, tries to find beauty in our world of woe and
worry. The Sung allegory of the Three Vinegar Tasters explains admirably the trend of the three doctrines. Sakyamuni,
Confucius, and Laotse once stood before a jar of vinegar--the emblem of life--and each dipped in his finger to taste the
brew. The matter-of-fact Confucius found it sour, the Buddha called it bitter, and Laotse pronounced it sweet.
The Taoists claimed that the comedy of life could be made more interesting if everyone would preserve the unities. To
keep the proportion of things and give place to others without losing one's own position was the secret of success in the
mundane drama. We must know the whole play in order to properly act our parts; the conception of totality must never
be lost in that of the individual. This Laotse illustrates by his favourite metaphor of the Vacuum. He claimed that only in
vacuum lay the truly essential. The reality of a room, for instance, was to be found in the vacant space enclosed by the
roof and the walls, not in the roof and walls themselves. The usefulness of a water pitcher dwelt in the emptiness where
water might be put, not in the form of the pitcher or the material of which it was made. Vacuum is all potent because all
containing. In vacuum alone motion becomes possible. One who could make of himself a vacuum into which others might
freely enter would become master of all situations. The whole can always dominate the part.
These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu,
the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and
exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final
struggle. In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid
the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistably rivets your attention until
you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic
emotion.
He whohad made himself master of the art of living was the Real man of the Taoist. At birth he enters the realm of
dreams only to awaken to reality at death. He tempers his own brightness in order to merge himself into the obscurity of
others. He is "reluctant, as one who crosses a stream in winter; hesitating as one who fears the neighbourhood;
respectful, like a guest; trembling, like ice that is about to melt; unassuming, like a piece of wood not yet carved; vacant,
like a valley; formless, like troubled waters." To him the three jewls of life were Pity, Economy, and Modesty.
If now we turn our attention to Zennism we shall find that it emphasises the teachings of Taoism. Zen is a name derived
from the Sanscrit word Dhyana, which signifies meditation. It claims that through consecrated meditation may be attained
supreme self-realisation. Meditation is one of the six ways through which Buddhahood may be reached, and the Zen
sectarians affirm that Sakyamuni laid special stress on this method in his later teachings, handing down the rules to his
chief disciple Kashiapa. According to their tradition Kashiapa, the first Zen patriarch, imparted the secret to Ananda, who
in turn passed it on to successive patriarchs until it reached Bodhi-Dharma, the twenty-eighth. Bodhi-Dharma came to
Northern China in the early half of the sixth century and was the first patriarch of Chinese Zen. There is much uncertainty
about the history of these patriarchs and their doctrines. In its philosophical aspect early Zennism seems to have affinity
on one hand to the Indian Negativism of Nagarjuna and on the other to the Gnan philosophy formulated by
Sancharacharya. The first teaching of Zen as we know it at the present day must be attributed to the sixth Chinese
patriarch Yeno(637-713), founder of Southern Zen, so-called from the fact of its predominance in Southern China. He is
closely followed by the great Baso(died 788) who made of Zen a living influence in Celestial life. Hiakujo(719-814) the
pupil of Baso, first instituted the Zen monastery and established a ritual and regulations for its government. In the
discussions of the Zen school after the time of Baso we find the play of the Yangtse-Kiang mind causing an accession of
native modes of thought in contrast to the former Indian idealism. Whatever sectarian pride may assert to the contrary
one cannot help being impressed by the similarity of Southern Zen to the teachings of Laotse and the Taoist
Conversationalists. In the Tao-teking we already find allusions to the importance of self-concentration and the need of
properly regulating the breath--essential points in the practice of Zen meditation. Some of the best commentaries on the
Book of Laotse have been written by Zen scholars.
Zennism, like Taoism, is the worship of Relativity. One master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the
southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the comprehension of opposites. Again, Zennism, like Taoism, is a
strong advocate of individualism. Nothing is real except that which concerns the working of our own minds. Yeno, the
sixth patriarch, once saw two monks watching the flag of a pagoda fluttering in the wind. One said "It is the wind that
moves," the other said "It is the flag that moves"; but Yeno explained to them that the real movement was neither of the
wind nor the flag, but of something within their own minds. Hiakujo was walking in the forest with a disciple when a hare
scurried off at their approach. "Why does the hare fly from you?" asked Hiakujo. "Because he is afraid of me," was the
answer. "No," said the master, "it is because you have murderous instinct." The dialogue recalls that of Soshi
(Chauntse), the Taoist. One day Soshi was walking on the bank of a river with a friend. "How delightfully the fishes are
enjoying themselves in the water!" exclaimed Soshi. His friend spake to him thus: "You are not a fish; how do you know
that the fishes are enjoying themselves?" "You are not myself," returned Soshi; "how do you know that I do not know that
the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
Zen was often opposed to the precepts of orthodox Buddhism even as Taoism was opposed to Confucianism. To the
transcendental insight of the Zen, words were but an incumberance to thought; the whole sway of Buddhist scriptures
only commentaries on personal speculation. The followers of Zen aimed at direct communion with the inner nature of
things, regarding their outward accessories only as impediments to a clear perception of Truth. It was this love of the
Abstract that led the Zen to prefer black and white sketches to the elaborately coloured paintings of the classic Buddhist
School. Some of the Zen even became iconoclastic as a result of their endeavor to recognise the Buddha in themselves
rather than through images and symbolism. We find Tankawosho breaking up a wooden statue of Buddha on a wintry
day to make a fire. "What sacrilege!" said the horror-stricken bystander. "I wish to get the Shali out of the ashes," camply
rejoined the Zen. "But you certainly will not get Shali from this image!" was the angry retort, to which Tanka replied, "If I
do not, this is certainly not a Buddha and I am committing no sacrilege." Then he turned to warm himself over the
kindling fire.
A special contribution of Zen to Easthern thought was its recognition of the mundane as of equal importance with the
spiritual. It held that in the great relation of things there was no distinction of small and great, an atom posessing equal
possibilites with the universe. The seeker for perfection must discover in his own life the reflection of the inner light. The
organisation of the Zen monastery was very significant of this point of view. To every member, except the abbot, was
assigned some special work in the caretaking of the monastery, and curiously enough, to the novices was committed the
lighter duties, while to the most respected and advanced monks were given the more irksome and menial tasks. Such
services formed a part of the Zen discipline and every least action must be done absolutely perfectly. Thus many a
weighty discussion ensued while weeding the garden, paring a turnip, or serving tea. The whole ideal of Teaism is a
result of this Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life. Taoism furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals,
Zennism made them practical.
CHAPTER IV
The Tea-Room
To European architects brought up on the traditions of stone and brick construction, our Japanese method of building
with wood and bamboo seems scarcely worthy to be ranked as architecture. It is but quite recently that a competent
student of Western architecture has recognised and paid tribute to the remarkable perfection of our great temples. Such
being the case as regards our classic architecture, we could hardly expect the outsider to appreciate the subtle beauty
of the tea-room, its principles of construction and decoration being entirely different from those of the West.
The tea-room (the Sukiya) does not pretend to be other than a mere cottage--a straw hut, as we call it. The original
ideographs for Sukiya mean the Abode of Fancy. Latterly the various tea-masters substituted various Chinese
characters according to their conception of the tea-room, and the term Sukiya may signify the Abode of Vacancy or the
Abode of the Unsymmetrical. It is an Abode of Fancy inasmuch as it is an ephemeral structure built to house a poetic
impulse. It is an Abode of Vacancy inasmuch as it is devoid of ornamentation except for what may be placed in it to
satisfy some aesthetic need of the moment. It is an Abode of the Unsymmetrical inasmuch as it is consecrated to the
worship of the Imperfect, purposely leaving some thing unfinished for the play of the imagination to complete. The ideals
of Teaism have since the sixteenth century influenced our architecture to such degree that the ordinary Japanese
interior of the present day, on account of the extreme simplicity and chasteness of its scheme of decoration, appears to
foreigners almost barren.
The first independent tea-room was the creation of Senno-Soyeki, commonly known by his later name of Rikiu, the
greatest of all tea-masters, who, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Taiko-Hideyoshi, instituted and brought
to a high state of perfection the formalities of the Tea-ceremony. The proportions of the tea-room had been previously
determined by Jowo--a famous tea-master of the fifteenth century. The early tea-room consisted merely of a portion of
the ordinary drawing-room partitioned off by screens for the purpose of the tea-gathering. The portion partitioned off
was called the Kakoi (enclosure), a name still applied to those tea-rooms which are built into a house and are not
independent constructions. The Sukiya consists of the tea-room proper, designed to accomodate not more than five
persons, a number suggestive of the saying "more than the Graces and less than the Muses," an anteroom (midsuya)
where the tea utensils are washed and arranged before being brought in, a portico (machiai) in which the guests wait
until they receive the summons to enter the tea-room, and a garden path (the roji) which connects the machiai with the
tea-room. The tea-room is unimpressive in appearance. It is smaller than the smallest of Japanese houses, while the
materials used in its construction are intended to give the suggestion of refined poverty. Yet we must remember that all
this is the result of profound artistic forethought, and that the details have been worked out with care perhaps even
greater than that expended on the building of the richest palaces and temples. A good tea-room is more costly than an
ordinary mansion, for the selection of its materials, as well as its workmanship, requires immense care and precision.
Indeed, the carpenters employed by the tea-masters form a distinct and highly honoured class among artisans, their
work being no less delicate than that of the makers of lacquer cabinets.
The tea-room is not only different from any production of Western architecture, but also contrasts strongly with the
classical architecture of Japan itself. Our ancient noble edifices, whether secular or ecclesiastical, were not to be
despised even as regards their mere size. The few that have been spared in the disastrous conflagrations of centuries
are still capable of aweing us by the grandeur and richness of their decoration. Huge pillars of wood from two to three
feet in diameter and from thirty to forty feet high, supported, by a complicated network of brackets, the enormous beams
which groaned under the weight of the tile-covered roofs. The material and mode of construction, though weak against
fire, proved itself strong against earthquakes, and was well suited to the climatic conditions of the country. In the Golden
Hall of Horiuji and the Pagoda of Yakushiji, we have noteworthy examples of the durability of our wooden architecture.
These buildings have practically stood intact for nearly twelve centuries. The interior of the old temples and palaces was
profusely decorated. In the Hoodo temple at Uji, dating from the tenth century, we can still see the elaborate canopy and
gilded baldachinos, many-coloured and inlaid with mirrors and mother-of-pearl, as well as remains of the paintings and
sculpture which formerly covered the walls. Later, at Nikko and in the Nijo castle in Kyoto, we see structural beauty
sacrificed to a wealth of ornamentation which in colour and exquisite detail equals the utmost gorgeousness of Arabian
or Moorish effort.
The simplicity and purism of the tea-room resulted from emulation of the Zen monastery. A Zen monastery differs from
those of other Buddhist sects inasmuch as it is meant only to be a dwelling place for the monks. Its chapel is not a place
of worship or pilgrimage, but a college room where the students congregate for discussion and the practice of
meditation. The room is bare except for a central alcove in which, behind the altar, is a statue of Bodhi Dharma, the
founder of the sect, or of Sakyamuni attended by Kaphiapa and Ananda, the two earliest Zen patriarchs. On the altar,
flowers and incense are offered up in the memory of the great contributions which these sages made to Zen. We have
already said that it was the ritual instituted by the Zen monks of successively drinking tea out of a bowl before the image
of Bodhi Dharma, which laid the foundations of the tea-ceremony. We might add here that the altar of the Zen chapel
was the prototype of the Tokonoma,--the place of honour in a Japanese room where paintings and flowers are placed for
the edification of the guests.
All our great tea-masters were students of Zen and attempted to introduce the spirit of Zennism into the actualities of life.
Thus the room, like the other equipments of the tea-ceremony, reflects many of the Zen doctrines. The size of the
orthodox tea-room, which is four mats and a half, or ten feet square, is determined by a passage in the Sutra of
Vikramadytia. In that interesting work, Vikramadytia welcomes the Saint Manjushiri and eighty-four thousand disciples of
Buddha in a room of this size,--an allegory based on the theory of the non-existence of space to the truly enlightened.
Again the roji, the garden path which leads from the machiai to the tea-room, signified the first stage of meditation,--the
passage into self-illumination. The roji was intended to break connection with the outside world, and produce a fresh
sensation conducive to the full enjoyment of aestheticism in the tea-room itself. One who has trodden this garden path
cannot fail to remember how his spirit, as he walked in the twilight of evergreens over the regular irregularities of the
stepping stones, beneath which lay dried pine needles, and passed beside the moss-covered granite lanterns, became
uplifted above ordinary thoughts. One may be in the midst of a city, and yet feel as if he were in the forest far away from
the dust and din of civilisation. Great was the ingenuity displayed by the tea-masters in producing these effects of
serenity and purity. The nature of the sensations to be aroused in passing through the roji differed with different
tea-masters. Some, like Rikiu, aimed at utter loneliness, and claimed the secret of making a roji was contained in the
ancient ditty: "I look beyond;/Flowers are not,/Nor tinted leaves./On the sea beach/ A solitary cottage stands/In the
waning light/Of an autumn eve."
Others, like Kobori-Enshiu, sought for a different effect. Enshiu said the idea of the garden path was to be found in the
following verses: "A cluster of summer trees,/A bit of the sea,/A pale evening moon." It is not difficult to gather his
meaning. He wished to create the attitude of a newly awakened soul still lingering amid shadowy dreams of the past, yet
bathing in the sweet unconsciousness of a mellow spiritual light, and yearning for the freedom that lay in the expanse
beyond.
Thus prepared the guest will silently approach the sanctuary, and, if a samurai, will leave his sword on the rack beneath
the eaves, the tea-room being preeminently the house of peace. Then he will bend low and creep into the room through
a small door not more than three feet in height. This proceeding was incumbent on all guests,--high and low alike,--and
was intended to inculcate humility. The order of precedence having been mutually agreed upon while resting in the
machiai, the guests one by one will enter noiselessly and take their seats, first making obeisance to the picture or flower
arrangement on the tokonoma. The host will not enter the room until all the guests have seated themselves and quiet
reigns with nothing to break the silence save the note of the boiling water in the iron kettle. The kettle sings well, for
pieces of iron are so arranged in the bottom as to produce a peculiar melody in which one may hear the echoes of a
cataract muffled by clouds, of a distant sea breaking among the rocks, a rainstorm sweeping through a bamboo forest,
or of the soughing of pines on some faraway hill.
Even in the daytime the light in the room is subdued, for the low eaves of the slanting roof admit but few of the sun's
rays. Everything is sober in tint from the ceiling to the floor; the guests themselves have carefully chosen garments of
unobtrusive colors. The mellowness of age is over all, everything suggestive of recent acquirement being tabooed save
only the one note of contrast furnished by the bamboo dipper and the linen napkin, both immaculately white and new.
However faded the tea-room and the tea-equipage may seem, everything is absolutely clean. Not a particle of dust will
be found in the darkest corner, for if any exists the host is not a tea-master. One of the first requisites of a tea-master is
the knowledge of how to sweep, clean, and wash, for there is an art in cleaning and dusting. A piece of antique metal
work must not be attacked with the unscrupulous zeal of the Dutch housewife. Dripping water from a flower vase need
not be wiped away, for it may be suggestive of dew and coolness.
In this connection there is a story of Rikiu which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the tea-masters.
Rikiu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikiu, when
Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikiu: "Father, there is nothing
more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with
water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground." "Young fool,"
chided the tea-master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikiu stepped into the garden,
shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn! What Rikiu
demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also.
The name, Abode of Fancy, implies a structure created to meet some individual artistic requirement. The tea-room is
made for the tea master, not the tea-master for the tea-room. It is not intended for posterity and is therefore ephemeral.
The idea that everyone should have a house of his own is based on an ancient custom of the Japanese race, Shinto
superstition ordaining that every dwelling should be evacuated on the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps there may
have been some unrealized sanitary reason for this practice. Another early custom was that a newly built house should
be provided for each couple that married. It is on account of such customs that we find the Imperial capitals so frequently
removed from one site to another in ancient days. The rebuilding, every twenty years, of Ise Temple, the supreme shrine
of the Sun-Goddess, is an example of one of these ancient rites which still obtain at the present day. The observance of
these customs was only possible with some form of construction as that furnished by our system of wooden architecture,
easily pulled down, easily built up. A more lasting style, employing brick and stone, would have rendered migrations
impracticable, as indeed they became when the more stable and massive wooden construction of China was adopted by
us after the Nara period.
With the predominance of Zen individualism in the fifteenth century, however, the old idea became imbued with a deeper
significance as conceived in connection with the tea-room. Zennism, with the Buddhist theory of evanescence and its
demands for the mastery of spirit over matter, recognized the house only as a temporary refuge for the body. The body
itself was but as a hut in the wilderness, a flimsy shelter made by tying together the grasses that grew around,--when
these ceased to be bound together they again became resolved into the original waste. In the tea-room fugitiveness is
suggested in the thatched roof, frailty in the slender pillars, lightness in the bamboo support, apparent carelessness in
the use of commonplace materials. The eternal is to be found only in the spirit which, embodied in these simple
surroundings, beautifies them with the subtle light of its refinement.
That the tea-room should be built to suit some individual taste is an enforcement of the principle of vitality in art. Art, to
be fully appreciated, must be true to contemporaneous life. It is not that we should ignore the claims of posterity, but that
we should seek to enjoy the present more. It is not that we should disregard the creations of the past, but that we should
try to assimilate them into our consciousness. Slavish conformity to traditions and formulas fetters the expression of
individuality in architecture. We can but weep over the senseless imitations of European buildings which one beholds in
modern Japan. We marvel why, among the most progressive Western nations, architecture should be so devoid of
originality, so replete with repetitions of obsolete styles. Perhaps we are passing through an age of democritisation in art,
while awaiting the rise of some princely master who shall establish a new dynasty. Would that we loved the ancients more
and copied them less! It has been said that the Greeks were great because they never drew from the antique.
The term, Abode of Vacancy, besides conveying the Taoist theory of the all-containing, involves the conception of a
continued need of change in decorative motives. The tea-room is absolutely empty, except for what may be placed there
temporarily to satisfy some aesthetic mood. Some special art object is brought in for the occasion, and everything else is
selected and arranged to enhance the beauty of the principal theme. One cannot listen to different pieces of music at
the same time, a real comprehension of the beautiful being possible only through concentration upon some central
motive. Thus it will be seen that the system of decoration in our tea-rooms is opposed to that which obtains in the West,
where the interior of a house is often converted into a museum. To a Japanese, accustomed to simplicity of
ornamentation and frequent change of decorative method, a Western interior permanently filled with a vast array of
pictures, statuary, and bric-a-brac gives the impression of mere vulgar display of riches. It calls for a mighty wealth of
appreciation to enjoy the constant sight of even a masterpiece, and limitless indeed must be the capacity for artistic
feeling in those who can exist day after day in the midst of such confusion of color and form as is to be often seen in the
homes of Europe and America.
The "Abode of the Unsymmetrical" suggests another phase of our decorative scheme. The absence of symmetry in
Japanese art objects has been often commented on by Western critics. This, also, is a result of a working out through
Zennism of Taoist ideals. Confucianism, with its deep-seated idea of dualism, and Northern Buddhism with its worship of
a trinity, were in no way opposed to the expression of symmetry. As a matter of fact, if we study the ancient bronzes of
China or the religious arts of the Tang dynasty and the Nara period, we shall recognize a constant striving after
symmetry. The decoration of our classical interiors was decidedly regular in its arrangement. The Taoist and Zen
conception of perfection, however, was different. The dynamic nature of their philosophy laid more stress upon the
process through which perfection was sought than upon perfection itself. True beauty could be discovered only by one
who mentally completed the incomplete. The virility of life and art lay in its possibilities for growth. In the tea-room it is left
for each guest in imagination to complete the total effect in relation to himself. Since Zennism has become the prevailing
mode of thought, the art of the extreme Orient has purposefully avoided the symmetrical as expressing not only
completion, but repetition. Uniformity of design was considered fatal to the freshness of imagination. Thus, landscapes,
birds, and flowers became the favorite subjects for depiction rather than the human figure, the latter being present in the
person of the beholder himself. We are often too much in evidence as it is, and in spite of our vanity even self-regard is
apt to become monotonous.
In the tea-room the fear of repetition is a constant presence. The various objects for the decoration of a room should be
so selected that no colour or design shall be repeated. If you have a living flower, a painting of flowers is not allowable. If
you are using a round kettle, the water pitcher should be angular. A cup with a black glaze should not be associated with
a tea-caddy of black laquer. In placing a vase of an incense burner on the tokonoma, care should be taken not to put it
in the exact centre, lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the tokonoma should be of a different kind of
wood from the other pillars, in order to break any suggestion of monotony in the room.
Here again the Japanese method of interior decoration differs from that of the Occident, where we see objects arrayed
symmetrically on mantelpieces and elsewhere. In Western houses we are often confronted with what appears to us
useless reiteration. We find it trying to talk to a man while his full-length portrait stares at us from behind his back. We
wonder which is real, he of the picture or he who talks, and feel a curious conviction that one of them must be fraud.
Many a time have we sat at a festive board contemplating, with a secret shock to our digestion, the representation of
abundance on the dining-room walls. Why these pictured victims of chase and sport, the elaborate carvings of fishes
and fruit? Why the display of family plates, reminding us of those who have dined and are dead?
The simplicity of the tea-room and its freedom from vulgarity make it truly a sanctuary from the vexations of the outer
world. There and there alone one can consecrate himself to undisturbed adoration of the beautiful. In the sixteenth
century the tea-room afforded a welcome respite from labour to the fierce warriors and statesmen engaged in the
unification and reconstruction of Japan. In the seventeenth century, after the strict formalism of the Tokugawa rule had
been developed, it offered the only opportunity possible for the free communion of artistic spirits. Before a great work of
art there was no distinction between daimyo, samurai, and commoner. Nowadays industrialism is making true refinement
more and more difficult all the world over. Do we not need the tea-room more than ever?
CHAPTER V
Art Appreciation
Have you heard the Taoist tale of the Taming of the Harp?
Once in the hoary ages in the Ravine of Lungmen stood a Kiri tree, a veritable king of the forest. It reared its head to talk
to the stars; its roots struck deep into the earth, mingling their bronzed coils with those of the silver dragon that slept
beneath. And it came to pass that a mighty wizard made of this tree a wondrous harp, whose stubborn spirit should be
tamed but by the greatest of musicians. For long the instrument was treasured by the Emperor of China, but all in vain
were the efforts of those who in turn tried to draw melody from its strings. In response to their utmost strivings there
came from the harp but harsh notes of disdain, ill-according with the songs they fain would sing. The harp refused to
recognise a master.
At last came Peiwoh, the prince of harpists. With tender hand he caressed the harp as one might seek to soothe an
unruly horse, and softly touched the chords. He sang of nature and the seasons, of high mountains and flowing waters,
and all the memories of the tree awoke! Once more the sweet breath of spring played amidst its branches. The young
cataracts, as they danced down the ravine, laughed to the budding flowers. Anon were heard the dreamy voices of
summer with its myriad insects, the gentle pattering of rain, the wail of the cuckoo. Hark! a tiger roars,--the valley
answers again. It is autumn; in the desert night, sharp like a sword gleams the moon upon the frosted grass. Now winter
reigns, and through the snow-filled air swirl flocks of swans and rattling hailstones beat upon the boughs with fierce
delight.
Then Peiwoh changed the key and sang of love. The forest swayed like an ardent swain deep lost in thought. On high,
like a haughty maiden, swept a cloud bright and fair; but passing, trailed long shadows on the ground, black like despair.
Again the mode was changed; Peiwoh sang of war, of clashing steel and trampling steeds. And in the harp arose the
tempest of Lungmen, the dragon rode the lightning, the thundering avalanche crashed through the hills. In ecstasy the
Celestial monarch asked Peiwoh wherein lay the secret of his victory. "Sire," he replied, "others have failed because they
sang but of themselves. I left the harp to choose its theme, and knew not truly whether the harp had been Peiwoh or
Peiwoh were the harp."
This story well illustrates the mystery of art appreciation. The masterpiece is a symphony played upon our finest feelings.
True art is Peiwoh, and we the harp of Lungmen. At the magic touch of the beautiful the secret chords of our being are
awakened, we vibrate and thrill in response to its call. Mind speaks to mind. We listen to the unspoken, we gaze upon the
unseen. The master calls forth notes we know not of. Memories long forgotten all come back to us with a new
significance. Hopes stifled by fear, yearnings that we dare not recognise, stand forth in new glory. Our mind is the
canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the
shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.
The sympathetic communion of minds necessary for art appreciation must be based on mutual concession. The
spectator must cultivate the proper attitude for receiving the message, as the artist must know how to impart it. The
tea-master, Kobori-Enshiu, himself a daimyo, has left to us these memorable words: "Approach a great painting as thou
wouldst approach a great prince." In order to understand a masterpiece, you must lay yourself low before it and await
with bated breath its least utterance. An eminent Sung critic once made a charming confession. Said he: "In my young
days I praised the master whose pictures I liked, but as my judgement matured I praised myself for liking what the
masters had chosen to have me like." It is to be deplored that so few of us really take pains to study the moods of the
masters. In our stubborn ignorance we refuse to render them this simple courtesy, and thus often miss the rich repast of
beauty spread before our very eyes. A master has always something to offer, while we go hungry solely because of our
own lack of appreciation.
To the sympathetic a masterpiece becomes a living reality towards which we feel drawn in bonds of comradeship. The
masters are immortal, for their loves and fears live in us over and over again. It is rather the soul than the hand, the man
than the technique, which appeals to us,--the more human the call the deeper is our response. It is because of this
secret understanding between the master and ourselves that in poetry or romance we suffer and rejoice with the hero
and heroine. Chikamatsu, our Japanese Shakespeare, has laid down as one of the first principles of dramatic
composition the importance of taking the audience into the confidence of the author. Several of his pupils submitted
plays for his approval, but only one of the pieces appealed to him. It was a play somewhat resembling the Comedy of
Errors, in which twin brethren suffer through mistaken identity. "This," said Chikamatsu, "has the proper spirit of the
drama, for it takes the audience into consideration. The public is permitted to know more than the actors. It knows where
the mistake lies, and pities the poor figures on the board who innocently rush to their fate."
The great masters both of the East and the West never forgot the value of suggestion as a means for taking the
spectator into their confidence. Who can contemplate a masterpiece without being awed by the immense vista of thought
presented to our consideration? How familiar and sympathetic are they all; how cold in contrast the modern
commonplaces! In the former we feel the warm outpouring of a man's heart; in the latter only a formal salute. Engrossed
in his technique, the modern rarely rises above himself. Like the musicians who vainly invoked the Lungmen harp, he
sings only of himself. His works may be nearer science, but are further from humanity. We have an old saying in Japan
that a woman cannot love a man who is truly vain, for their is no crevice in his heart for love to enter and fill up. In art
vanity is equally fatal to sympathetic feeling, whether on the part of the artist or the public.
Nothing is more hallowing than the union of kindred spirits in art. At the moment of meeting, the art lover transcends
himself. At once he is and is not. He catches a glimpse of Infinity, but words cannot voice his delight, for the eye has no
tongue. Freed from the fetters of matter, his spirit moves in the rhythm of things. It is thus that art becomes akin to
religion and ennobles mankind. It is this which makes a masterpiece something sacred. In the old days the veneration in
which the Japanese held the work of the great artist was intense. The tea-masters guarded their treasures with religious
secrecy, and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes, one within another, before reaching the shrine
itself--the silken wrapping within whose soft folds lay the holy of holies. Rarely was the object exposed to view, and then
only to the initiated.
At the time when Teaism was in the ascendency the Taiko's generals would be better satisfied with the present of a rare
work of art than a large grant of territory as a reward of victory. Many of our favourite dramas are based on the loss and
recovery of a noted masterpiece. For instance, in one play the palace of Lord Hosokawa, in which was preserved the
celebrated painting of Dharuma by Sesson, suddenly takes fire through the negligence of the samurai in charge.
Resolved at all hazards to rescue the precious painting, he rushes into the burning building and seizes the kakemono,
only to find all means of exit cut off by the flames. Thinking only of the picture, he slashes open his body with his sword,
wraps his torn sleeve about the Sesson and plunges it into the gaping wound. The fire is at last extinguished. Among the
smoking embers is found a half- consumed corps, within which reposes the treasure uninjured by the fire. Horrible as
such tales are, they illustrate the great value that we set upon a masterpiece, as well as the devotion of a trusted
samurai.
We must remember, however, that art is of value only to the extent that it speaks to us. It might be a universal language
if we ourselves were universal in our sympathies. Our finite nature, the power of tradition and conventionality, as well as
our hereditary instincts, restrict the scope of our capacity for artistic enjoyment. Our very individuality establishes in one
sense a limit to our understanding; and our aesthetic personality seeks its own affinities in the creations of the past. It is
true that with cultivation our sense of art appreciation broadens, and we become able to enjoy many hitherto
unrecognised expressions of beauty. But, after all, we see only our own image in the universe,--our particular
idiosyncracies dictate the mode of our perceptions. The tea- masters collected only objects which fell strictly within the
measure of their individual appreciation.
One is reminded in this connection of a story concerning Kobori-Enshiu. Enshiu was complimented by his disciples on
the admirable taste he had displayed in the choice of his collection. Said they, "Each piece is such that no one could
help admiring. It shows that you had better taste than had Rikiu, for his collection could only be appreciated by one
beholder in a thousand." Sorrowfully Enshiu replied: "This only proves how commonplace I am. The great Rikiu dared to
love only those objects which personally appealed to him, whereas I unconsciously cater to the taste of the majority.
Verily, Rikiu was one in a thousand among tea-masters."
It is much to be regretted that so much of the apparent enthusiasm for art at the present day has no foundation in real
feeling. In this democratic age of ours men clamour for what is popularly considered the best, regardless of their
feelings. They want the costly, not the refined; the fashionable, not the beautiful. To the masses, contemplation of
illustrated periodicals, the worthy product of their own industrialism, would give more digestible food for artistic enjoyment
than the early Italians or the Ashikaga masters, whom they pretend to admire. The name of the artist is more important to
them than the quality of the work. As a Chinese critic complained many centuries ago, "People criticise a picture by their
ear." It is this lack of genuine appreciation that is responsible for the pseudo-classic horrors that to-day greet us
wherever we turn.
Another common mistake is that of confusing art with archaeology. The veneration born of antiquity is one of the best
traits in the human character, and fain would we have it cultivated to a greater extent. The old masters are rightly to be
honoured for opening the path to future enlightenment. The mere fact that they have passed unscathed through
centuries of criticism and come down to us still covered with glory commands our respect. But we should be foolish
indeed if we valued their achievement simply on the score of age. Yet we allow our historical sympathy to override our
aesthetic discrimination. We offer flowers of approbation when the artist is safely laid in his grave. The nineteenth
century, pregnant with the theory of evolution, has moreover created in us the habit of losing sight of the individual in the
species. A collector is anxious to acquire specimens to illustrate a period or a school, and forgets that a single
masterpiece can teach us more than any number of the mediocre products of a given period or school. We classify too
much and enjoy too little. The sacrifice of the aesthetic to the so-called scientific method of exhibition has been the bane
of many museums.
The claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life. The art of to-day is that which really
belongs to us: it is our own reflection. In condemning it we but condemn ourselves. We say that the present age
possesses no art:--who is responsible for this? It is indeed a shame that despite all our rhapsodies about the ancients
we pay so little attention to our own possibilities. Struggling artists, weary souls lingering in the shadow of cold disdain! In
our self- centered century, what inspiration do we offer them? The past may well look with pity at the poverty of our
civilisation; the future will laugh at the barrenness of our art. We are destroying the beautiful in life. Would that some
great wizard might from the stem of society shape a mighty harp whose strings would resound to the touch of genius.
CHAPTER VI
Flowers
In the trembling grey of a spring dawn, when the birds were whispering in mysterious cadence among the trees, have
you not felt that they were talking to their mates about the flowers? Surely with mankind the appreciation of flowers must
have been coeval with the poetry of love. Where better than in a flower, sweet in its unconsciousness, fragrant because
of its silence, can we image the unfolding of a virgin soul? The primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden
thereby transcended the brute. He became human in thus rising above the crude necessities of nature. He entered the
realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless.
In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. We eat, drink, sing, dance, and flirt with them. We wed and christen
with flowers. We dare not die without them. We have worshipped with the lily, we have meditated with the lotus, we have
charged in battle array with the rose and the chrysanthemum. We have even attempted to speak in the language of
flowers. How could we live without them? It frightens on to conceive of a world bereft of their presence. What solace do
they not bring to the bedside of the sick, what a light of bliss to the darkness of weary spirits? Their serene tenderness
restores to us our waning confidence in the universe even as the intent gaze of a beautiful child recalls our lost hopes.
When we are laid low in the dust it is they who linger in sorrow over our graves.
Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above
the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an
animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal
because he has never ceased to be an animal. Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing sacred except our own desires.
Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar is forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to
the supreme idol,--ourselves. Our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make
sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What
atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement!
Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of
the dews and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you
may in the gentle breezes of summer. To-morrow a ruthless hand will close around your throats. You will be wrenched,
torn asunder limb by limb, and borne away from your quiet homes. The wretch, she may be passing fair. She may say
how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be kindness? It may be your fate to
be imprisoned in the hair of one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the buttonhole of one who would not
dare to look you in the face were you a man. It may even be your lot to be confined in some narrow vessel with only
stagnant water to quench the maddening thirst that warns of ebbing life.
Flowers, if you were in the land of the Mikado, you might some time meet a dread personage armed with scissors and a
tiny saw. He would call himself a Master of Flowers. He would claim the rights of a doctor and you would instinctively hate
him, for you know a doctor always seeks to prolong the troubles of his victims. He would cut, bend, and twist you into
those impossible positions which he thinks it proper that you should assume. He would contort your muscles and
dislocate your bones like any osteopath. He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and thrust wires
into you to assist your circulation. He would diet you with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling water would
be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint. It would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two or
more weeks longer than would have been possible without his treatment. Would you not have preferred to have been
killed at once when you were first captured? What were the crimes you must have committed during your past
incarnation to warrant such punishment in this?
The wanton waste of flowers among Western communities is even more appalling than the way they are treated by
Eastern Flower Masters. The number of flowers cut daily to adorn the ballrooms and banquet-tables of Europe and
America, to be thrown away on the morrow, must be something enormous; if strung together they might garland a
continent. Beside this utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes insignificant. He, at least,
respects the economy of nature, selects his victims with careful foresight, and after death does honour to their remains.
In the West the display of flowers seems to be a part of the pageantry of wealth,--the fancy of a moment. Whither do they
all go, these flowers, when the revelry is over? Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorselessly flung
upon a dung heap.
Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight
when brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal
whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the
butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our
hardened ears. We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our
cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours. Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming
scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they
have migrated to heaven.
Much may be said in favor of him who cultivates plants. The man of the pot is far more humane than he of the scissors.
We watch with delight his concern about water and sunshine, his feuds with parasites, his horror of frosts, his anxiety
when the buds come slowly, his rapture when the leaves attain their lustre. In the East the art of floriculture is a very
ancient one, and the loves of a poet and his favorite plant have often been recorded in story and song. With the
development of ceramics during the Tang and Sung dynasties we hear of wonderful receptacles made to hold plants, not
pots, but jewelled palaces. A special attendant was detailed to wait upon each flower and to wash its leaves with soft
brushes made of rabbit hair. It has been written ["Pingtse", by Yuenchunlang] that the peony should be bathed by a
handsome maiden in full costume, that a winter-plum should be watered by a pale, slender monk. In Japan, one of the
most popular of the No-dances, the Hachinoki, composed during the Ashikaga period, is based upon the story of an
impoverished knight, who, on a freezing night, in lack of fuel for a fire, cuts his cherished plants in order to entertain a
wandering friar. The friar is in reality no other than Hojo-Tokiyori, the Haroun-Al-Raschid of our tales, and the sacrifice is
not without its reward. This opera never fails to draw tears from a Tokio audience even to-day.
Great precautions were taken for the preservation of delicate blossoms. Emperor Huensung, of the Tang Dynasty, hung
tiny golden bells on the branches in his garden to keep off the birds. He it was who went off in the springtime with his
court musicians to gladden the flowers with soft music. A quaint tablet, which tradition ascribes to Yoshitsune, the hero of
our Arthurian legends, is still extant in one of the Japanese monasteries [Sumadera, near Kobe]. It is a notice put up for
the protection of a certain wonderful plum-tree, and appeals to us with the grim humour of a warlike age. After referring
to the beauty of the blossoms, the inscription says: "Whoever cuts a single branch of this tree shall forfeit a finger
therefor." Would that such laws could be enforced nowadays against those who wantonly destroy flowers and mutilate
objects of art!
Yet even in the case of pot flowers we are inclined to suspect the selfishness of man. Why take the plants from their
homes and ask them to bloom mid strange surroundings? Is it not like asking the birds to sing and mate cooped up in
cages? Who knows but that the orchids feel stifled by the artificial heat in your conservatories and hopelessly long for a
glimpse of their own Southern skies?
The ideal lover of flowers is he who visits them in their native haunts, like Taoyuenming [all celebrated Chinese poets
and philosophers], who sat before a broken bamboo fence in converse with the wild chrysanthemum, or Linwosing,
losing himself amid mysterious fragrance as he wandered in the twilight among the plum-blossoms of the Western Lake.
'Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus. It was the same spirit
which moved the Empress Komio, one of our most renowned Nara sovereigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my hand will
defile thee, O flower! Standing in the meadows as thou art, I offer thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the present, of the
future."
However, let us not be too sentimental. Let us be less luxurious but more magnificent. Said Laotse: "Heaven and earth
are pitiless." Said Kobodaishi: "Flow, flow, flow, flow, the current of life is ever onward. Die, die, die, die, death comes to
all." Destruction faces us wherever we turn. Destruction below and above, destruction behind and before. Change is the
only Eternal,--why not as welcome Death as Life? They are but counterparts one of the other,--The Night and Day of
Brahma. Through the disintegration of the old, re-creation becomes possible. We have worshipped Death, the relentless
goddess of mercy, under many different names. It was the shadow of the All-devouring that the Gheburs greeted in the
fire. It is the icy purism of the sword-soul before which Shinto-Japan prostrates herself even to-day. The mystic fire
consumes our weakness, the sacred sword cleaves the bondage of desire. From our ashes springs the phoenix of
celestial hope, out of the freedom comes a higher realisation of manhood.
Why not destroy flowers if thereby we can evolve new forms ennobling the world idea? We only ask them to join in our
sacrifice to the beautiful. We shall atone for the deed by consecrating ourselves to Purity and Simplicity. Thus reasoned
the tea-masters when they established the Cult of Flowers.
Anyone acquainted with the ways of our tea- and flower-masters must have noticed the religious veneration with which
they regard flowers. They do not cull at random, but carefully select each branch or spray with an eye to the artistic
composition they have in mind. They would be ashamed should they chance to cut more than were absolutely
necessary. It may be remarked in this connection that they always associate the leaves, if there be any, with the flower,
for the object is to present the whole beauty of plant life. In this respect, as in many others, their method differs from that
pursued in Western countries. Here we are apt to see only the flower stems, heads as it were, without body, stuck
promiscuously into a vase.
When a tea-master has arranged a flower to his satisfaction he will place it on the tokonoma, the place of honour in a
Japanese room. Nothing else will be placed near it which might interfere with its effect, not even a painting, unless there
be some special aesthetic reason for the combination. It rests there like an enthroned prince, and the guests or disciples
on entering the room will salute it with a profound bow before making their addresses to the host. Drawings from
masterpieces are made and published for the edification of amateurs. The amount of literature on the subject is quite
voluminous. When the flower fades, the master tenderly consigns it to the river or carefully buries it in the ground.
Monuments are sometimes erected to their memory.
The birth of the Art of Flower Arrangement seems to be simultaneous with that of Teaism in the fifteenth century. Our
legends ascribe the first flower arrangement to those early Buddhist saints who gathered the flowers strewn by the storm
and, in their infinite solicitude for all living things, placed them in vessels of water. It is said that Soami, the great painter
and connoisseur of the court of Ashikaga- Yoshimasa, was one of the earliest adepts at it. Juko, the tea-master, was one
of his pupils, as was also Senno, the founder of the house of Ikenobo, a family as illustrious in the annals of flowers as
was that of the Kanos in painting. With the perfecting of the tea-ritual under Rikiu, in the latter part of the sixteenth
century, flower arrangement also attains its full growth. Rikiu and his successors, the celebrated Ota- wuraka,
Furuka-Oribe, Koyetsu, Kobori-Enshiu, Katagiri- Sekishiu, vied with each other in forming new combinations. We must
remember, however, that the flower-worship of the tea-masters formed only a part of their aesthetic ritual, and was not a
distinct religion by itself. A flower arrangement, like the other works of art in the tea-room, was subordinated to the total
scheme of decoration. Thus Sekishiu ordained that white plum blossoms should not be made use of when snow lay in
the garden. "Noisy" flowers were relentlessly banished from the tea-room. A flower arrangement by a tea-master loses its
significance if removed from the place for which it was originally intended, for its lines and proportions have been
specially worked out with a view to its surroundings.
The adoration of the flower for its own sake begins with the rise of "Flower-Masters," toward the middle of the
seventeenth century. It now becomes independent of the tea-room and knows no law save that the vase imposes on it.
New conceptions and methods of execution now become possible, and many were the principles and schools resulting
therefrom. A writer in the middle of the last century said he could count over one hundred different schools of flower
arrangement. Broadly speaking, these divide themselves into two main branches, the Formalistic and the Naturalesque.
The Formalistic schools, led by the Ikenobos, aimed at a classic idealism corresponding to that of the
Kano-academicians. We possess records of arrangements by the early masters of the school which almost reproduce
the flower paintings of Sansetsu and Tsunenobu. The Naturalesque school, on the other hand, accepted nature as its
model, only imposing such modifications of form as conduced to the expression of artistic unity. Thus we recognise in its
works the same impulses which formed the Ukiyoe and Shijo schools of painting.
It would be interesting, had we time, to enter more fully than it is now possible into the laws of composition and detail
formulated by the various flower-masters of this period, showing, as they would, the fundamental theories which
governed Tokugawa decoration. We find them referring to the Leading Principle (Heaven), the Subordinate Principle
(Earth), the Reconciling Principle (Man), and any flower arrangement which did not embody these principles was
considered barren and dead. They also dwelt much on the importance of treating a flower in its three different aspects,
the Formal, the Semi-Formal, and the Informal. The first might be said to represent flowers in the stately costume of the
ballroom, the second in the easy elegance of afternoon dress, the third in the charming deshabille of the boudoir.
Our personal sympathies are with the flower-arrangements of the tea-master rather than with those of the flower-master.
The former is art in its proper setting and appeals to us on account of its true intimacy with life. We should like to call this
school the Natural in contradistinction to the Naturalesque and Formalistic schools. The tea-master deems his duty
ended with the selection of the flowers, and leaves them to tell their own story. Entering a tea-room in late winter, you
may see a slender spray of wild cherries in combination with a budding camellia; it is an echo of departing winter coupled
with the prophecy of spring. Again, if you go into a noon-tea on some irritatingly hot summer day, you may discover in
the darkened coolness of the tokonoma a single lily in a hanging vase; dripping with dew, it seems to smile at the
foolishness of life.
A solo of flowers is interesting, but in a concerto with painting and sculpture the combination becomes entrancing.
Sekishiu once placed some water-plants in a flat receptacle to suggest the vegetation of lakes and marshes, and on the
wall above he hung a painting by Soami of wild ducks flying in the air. Shoha, another tea-master, combined a poem on
the Beauty of Solitude by the Sea with a bronze incense burner in the form of a fisherman's hut and some wild flowers of
the beach. One of the guests has recorded that he felt in the whole composition the breath of waning autumn.
Flower stories are endless. We shall recount but one more. In the sixteenth century the morning-glory was as yet a rare
plant with us. Rikiu had an entire garden planted with it, which he cultivated with assiduous care. The fame of his
convulvuli reached the ear of the Taiko, and he expressed a desire to see them, in consequence of which Rikiu invited
him to a morning tea at his house. On the appointed day Taiko walked through the garden, but nowhere could he see
any vestige of the convulvus. The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand. With sullen anger
the despot entered the tea-room, but a sight waited him there which completely restored his humour. On the tokonoma,
in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single morning-glory--the queen of the whole garden!
In such instances we see the full significance of the Flower Sacrifice. Perhaps the flowers appreciate the full significance
of it. They are not cowards, like men. Some flowers glory in death--certainly the Japanese cherry blossoms do, as they
freely surrender themselves to the winds. Anyone who has stood before the fragrant avalanche at Yoshino or
Arashiyama must have realized this. For a moment they hover like bejewelled clouds and dance above the crystal
streams; then, as they sail away on the laughing waters, they seem to say: "Farewell, O Spring! We are on to eternity."
CHAPTER VII
Tea-Masters
In religion the Future is behind us. In art the present is the eternal. The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is
only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard
of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and
conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the
poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters
not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty. Thus the
tea-master strove to be something more than the artist,--art itself. It was the Zen of aestheticism. Perfection is
everywhere if we only choose to recognise it. Rikiu loved to quote an old poem which says: "To those who long only for
flowers, fain would I show the full-blown spring which abides in the toiling buds of snow-covered hills."
Manifold indeed have been the contributions of the tea-masters to art. They completely revolutionised the classical
architecture and interior decorations, and established the new style which we have described in the chapter of the
tea-room, a style to whose influence even the palaces and monasteries built after the sixteenth century have all been
subject. The many-sided Kobori-Enshiu has left notable examples of his genius in the Imperial villa of Katsura, the
castles of Najoya and Nijo, and the monastery of Kohoan. All the celebrated gardens of Japan were laid out by the
tea-masters. Our pottery would probably never have attained its high quality of excellence if the tea-masters had not lent
it to their inspiration, the manufacture of the utensils used in the tea-ceremony calling forth the utmost expenditure of
ingenuity on the parts of our ceramists. The Seven Kilns of Enshiu are well known to all students of Japanese pottery.
many of our textile fabrics bear the names of tea-masters who conceived their color or design. It is impossible, indeed, to
find any department of art in which the tea-masters have not left marks of their genius. In painting and lacquer it seems
almost superfluous to mention the immense services they have rendered. One of the greatest schools of painting owes
its origin to the tea-master Honnami-Koyetsu, famed also as a lacquer artist and potter. Beside his works, the splendid
creation of his grandson, Koho, and of his grand-nephews, Korin and Kenzan, almost fall into the shade. The whole
Korin school, as it is generally designated, is an expression of Teaism. In the broad lines of this school we seem to find
the vitality of nature herself.
Great as has been the influence of the tea-masters in the field of art, it is as nothing compared to that which they have
exerted on the conduct of life. Not only in the usages of polite society, but also in the arrangement of all our domestic
details, do we feel the presence of the tea-masters. Many of our delicate dishes, as well as our way of serving food, are
their inventions. They have taught us to dress only in garments of sober colors. They have instructed us in the proper
spirit in which to approach flowers. They have given emphasis to our natural love of simplicity, and shown us the beauty
of humility. In fact, through their teachings tea has entered the life of the people.
Those of us who know not the secret of properly regulating our own existence on this tumultuous sea of foolish troubles
which we call life are constantly in a state of misery while vainly trying to appear happy and contented. We stagger in the
attempt to keep our moral equilibrium, and see forerunners of the tempest in every cloud that floats on the horizon. Yet
there is joy and beauty in the roll of billows as they sweep outward toward eternity. Why not enter into their spirit, or, like
Liehtse, ride upon the hurricane itself?
He only who has lived with the beautiful can die beautifully. The last moments of the great tea-masters were as full of
exquisite refinement as had been their lives. Seeking always to be in harmony with the great rhythm of the universe, they
were ever prepared to enter the unknown. The "Last Tea of Rikiu" will stand forth forever as the acme of tragic grandeur.
Long had been the friendship between Rikiu and the Taiko- Hideyoshi, and high the estimation in which the great warrior
held the tea-master. But the friendship of a despot is ever a dangerous honour. It was an age rife with treachery, and
men trusted not even their nearest kin. Rikiu was no servile courtier, and had often dared to differ in argument with his
fierce patron. Taking advantage of the coldness which had for some time existed between the Taiko and Rikiu, the
enemies of the latter accused him of being implicated in a conspiracy to poison the despot. It was whispered to Hideyoshi
that the fatal potion was to be administered to him with a cup of the green beverage prepared by the tea-master. With
Hideyoshi suspicion was sufficient ground for instant execution, and there was no appeal from the will of the angry ruler.
One privilege alone was granted to the condemned-- the honor of dying by his own hand.
On the day destined for his self-immolation, Rikiu invited his chief disciples to a last tea-ceremony. Mournfully at the
appointed time the guests met at the portico. As they look into the garden path the trees seem to shudder, and in the
rustling of their leaves are heard the whispers of homeless ghosts. Like solemn sentinels before the gates of Hades
stand the grey stone lanterns. A wave of rare incense is wafted from the tea-room; it is the summons which bids the
guests to enter. One by one they advance and take their places. In the tokonoma hangs a kakemon,--a wonderful writing
by an ancient monk dealing with the evanescence of all earthly things. The singing kettle, as it boils over the brazier,
sounds like some cicada pouring forth his woes to departing summer. Soon the host enters the room. Each in turn is
served with tea, and each in turn silently drains his cup, the host last of all. According to established etiquette, the chief
guest now asks permission to examine the tea-equipage. Rikiu places the various articles before them, with the
kakemono. After all have expressed admiration of their beauty, Rikiu presents one of them to each of the assembled
company as a souvenir. The bowl alone he keeps. "Never again shall this cup, polluted by the lips of misfortune, be used
by man." He speaks, and breaks the vessel into fragments.
The ceremony is over; the guests with difficulty restraining their tears, take their last farewell and leave the room. One
only, the nearest and dearest, is requested to remain and witness the end. Rikiu then removes his tea-gown and
carefully folds it upon the mat, thereby disclosing the immaculate white death robe which it had hitherto concealed.
Tenderly he gazes on the shining blade of the fatal dagger, and in exquisite verse thus addresses it:
"Welcome to thee,
O sword of eternity!
Through Buddha/
And through Daruma alike
Thou hast cleft thy way."
With a smile upon his face Rikiu passed forth into the unknown.
The Cup of Humanity
CHAPTER II
The Schools of Tea
CHAPTER III
Taoism and Zennism
CHAPTER IV
The Tea-Room
CHAPTER V
Art Appreciation
CHAPTER VI
Flowers
CHAPTER VII
Tea-Masters
CHAPTER I
The Cup of Humanity
Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as
one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism--Teaism. Teaism
is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and
harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as
it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.
The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the ordinary acceptance of the term, for it expresses conjointly with
ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is
economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it
defines our sense of proportion to the universe. It represents the true spirit of Eastern democracy by making all its
votaries aristocrats in taste.
The long isolation of Japan from the rest of the world, so conducive to introspection, has been highly favourable to the
development of Teaism. Our home and habits, costume and cuisine, porcelain, lacquer, painting--our very literature--all
have been subject to its influence. No student of Japanese culture could ever ignore its presence. It has permeated the
elegance of noble boudoirs, and entered the abode of the humble. Our peasants have learned to arrange flowers, our
meanest labourer to offer his salutation to the rocks and waters. In our common parlance we speak of the man "with no
tea" in him, when he is insusceptible to the serio-comic interests of the personal drama. Again we stigmatise the untamed
aesthete who, regardless of the mundane tragedy, runs riot in the springtide of emancipated emotions, as one "with too
much tea" in him.
The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. But
when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained
to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.
Mankind has done worse. In the worship of Bacchus, we have sacrificed too freely; and we have even transfigured the
gory image of Mars. Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and revel in the warm stream of
sympathy that flows from her altar? In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet
reticence of Confucius, the piquancy of Laotse, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyamuni himself.
Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in
others. The average Westerner, in his sleek complacency, will see in the tea ceremony but another instance of the
thousand and one oddities which constitute the quaintness and childishness of the East to him. He was wont to regard
Japan as barbarous while she indulged in the gentle arts of peace: he calls her civilised since she began to commit
wholesale slaughter on Manchurian battlefields. Much comment has been given lately to the Code of the Samurai, --the
Art of Death which makes our soldiers exult in self- sacrifice; but scarcely any attention has been drawn to Teaism, which
represents so much of our Art of Life. Fain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilisation were to be based on
the gruesome glory of war. Fain would we await the time when due respect shall be paid to our art and ideals.
When will the West understand, or try to understand, the East? We Asiatics are often appalled by the curious web of
facts and fancies which has been woven concerning us. We are pictured as living on the perfume of the lotus, if not on
mice and cockroaches. It is either impotent fanaticism or else abject voluptuousness. Indian spirituality has been derided
as ignorance, Chinese sobriety as stupidity, Japanese patriotism as the result of fatalism. It has been said that we are
less sensible to pain and wounds on account of the callousness of our nervous organisation!
Why not amuse yourselves at our expense? Asia returns the compliment. There would be further food for merriment if
you were to know all that we have imagined and written about you. All the glamour of the perspective is there, all the
unconscious homage of wonder, all the silent resentment of the new and undefined. You have been loaded with virtues
too refined to be envied, and accused of crimes too picturesque to be condemned. Our writers in the past--the wise men
who knew--informed us that you had bushy tails somewhere hidden in your garments, and often dined off a fricassee of
newborn babes! Nay, we had something worse against you: we used to think you the most impracticable people on the
earth, for you were said to preach what you never practiced.
Such misconceptions are fast vanishing amongst us. Commerce has forced the European tongues on many an Eastern
port. Asiatic youths are flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education. Our insight does not
penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of
your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats
comprised the attainment of your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they evince our
willingness to approach the West on our knees. Unfortunately the Western attitude is unfavourable to the understanding
of the East. The Christian missionary goes to impart, but not to receive. Your information is based on the meagre
translations of our immense literature, if not on the unreliable anecdotes of passing travellers. It is rarely that the
chivalrous pen of a Lafcadio Hearn or that of the author of "The Web of Indian Life" enlivens the Oriental darkness with
the torch of our own sentiments.
Perhaps I betray my own ignorance of the Tea Cult by being so outspoken. Its very spirit of politeness exacts that you
say what you are expected to say, and no more. But I am not to be a polite Teaist. So much harm has been done already
by the mutual misunderstanding of the New World and the Old, that one need not apologise for contributing his tithe to
the furtherance of a better understanding. The beginning of the twentieth century would have been spared the spectacle
of sanguinary warfare if Russia had condescended to know Japan better. What dire consequences to humanity lie in the
contemptuous ignoring of Eastern problems! European imperialism, which does not disdain to raise the absurd cry of the
Yellow Peril, fails to realise that Asia may also awaken to the cruel sense of the White Disaster. You may laugh at us for
having "too much tea," but may we not suspect that you of the West have "no tea" in your constitution?
Let us stop the continents from hurling epigrams at each other, and be sadder if not wiser by the mutual gain of half a
hemisphere. We have developed along different lines, but there is no reason why one should not supplement the other.
You have gained expansion at the cost of restlessness; we have created a harmony which is weak against aggression.
Will you believe it?--the East is better off in some respects than the West!
Strangely enough humanity has so far met in the tea-cup. It is the only Asiatic ceremonial which commands universal
esteem. The white man has scoffed at our religion and our morals, but has accepted the brown beverage without
hesitation. The afternoon tea is now an important function in Western society. In the delicate clatter of trays and saucers,
in the soft rustle of feminine hospitality, in the common catechism about cream and sugar, we know that the Worship of
Tea is established beyond question. The philosophic resignation of the guest to the fate awaiting him in the dubious
decoction proclaims that in this single instance the Oriental spirit reigns supreme.
The earliest record of tea in European writing is said to be found in the statement of an Arabian traveller, that after the
year 879 the main sources of revenue in Canton were the duties on salt and tea. Marco Polo records the deposition of a
Chinese minister of finance in 1285 for his arbitrary augmentation of the tea-taxes. It was at the period of the great
discoveries that the European people began to know more about the extreme Orient. At the end of the sixteenth century
the Hollanders brought the news that a pleasant drink was made in the East from the leaves of a bush. The travellers
Giovanni Batista Ramusio (1559), L. Almeida (1576), Maffeno (1588), Tareira (1610), also mentioned tea. In the
last-named year ships of the Dutch East India Company brought the first tea into Europe. It was known in France in
1636, and reached Russia in 1638. England welcomed it in 1650 and spoke of it as "That excellent and by all physicians
approved China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, and by other nations Tay, alias Tee."
Like all good things of the world, the propaganda of Tea met with opposition. Heretics like Henry Saville (1678)
denounced drinking it as a filthy custom. Jonas Hanway (Essay on Tea, 1756) said that men seemed to lose their stature
and comeliness, women their beauty through the use of tea. Its cost at the start (about fifteen or sixteen shillings a
pound) forbade popular consumption, and made it "regalia for high treatments and entertainments, presents being made
thereof to princes and grandees." Yet in spite of such drawbacks tea-drinking spread with marvellous rapidity. The
coffee-houses of London in the early half of the eighteenth century became, in fact, tea-houses, the resort of wits like
Addison and Steele, who beguiled themselves over their "dish of tea." The beverage soon became a necessity of life--a
taxable matter. We are reminded in this connection what an important part it plays in modern history. Colonial America
resigned herself to oppression until human endurance gave way before the heavy duties laid on Tea. American
independence dates from the throwing of tea-chests into Boston harbour.
There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible and capable of idealisation. Western humourists
were not slow to mingle the fragrance of their thought with its aroma. It has not the arrogance of wine, the self-
consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence of cocoa. Already in 1711, says the Spectator: "I would therefore
in a particular manner recommend these my speculations to all well-regulated families that set apart an hour every
morning for tea, bread and butter; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually
served up and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-equipage." Samuel Johnson draws his own portrait as "a hardened
and shameless tea drinker, who for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of the fascinating plant; who with
tea amused the evening, with tea solaced the midnight, and with tea welcomed the morning."
Charles Lamb, a professed devotee, sounded the true note of Teaism when he wrote that the greatest pleasure he knew
was to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. For Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that
you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal. It is the noble secret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet
thoroughly, and is thus humour itself,--the smile of philosophy. All genuine humourists may in this sense be called
tea-philosophers,--Thackeray, for instance, and of course, Shakespeare. The poets of the Decadence (when was not
the world in decadence?), in their protests against materialism, have, to a certain extent, also opened the way to Teaism.
Perhaps nowadays it is our demure contemplation of the Imperfect that the West and the East can meet in mutual
consolation.
The Taoists relate that at the great beginning of the No-Beginning, Spirit and Matter met in mortal combat. At last the
Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, triumphed over Shuhyung, the demon of darkness and earth. The Titan, in his
death agony, struck his head against the solar vault and shivered the blue dome of jade into fragments. The stars lost
their nests, the moon wandered aimlessly among the wild chasms of the night. In despair the Yellow Emperor sought far
and wide for the repairer of the Heavens. He had not to search in vain. Out of the Eastern sea rose a queen, the divine
Niuka, horn-crowned and dragon-tailed, resplendent in her armor of fire. She welded the five-coloured rainbow in her
magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese sky. But it is told that Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firmament.
Thus began the dualism of love--two souls rolling through space and never at rest until they join together to complete
the universe. Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace.
The heaven of modern humanity is indeed shattered in the Cyclopean struggle for wealth and power. The world is
groping in the shadow of egotism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced
for the sake of utility. The East and the West, like two dragons tossed in a sea of ferment, in vain strive to regain the
jewel of life. We need a Niuka again to repair the grand devastation; we await the great Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a
sip of tea. The afternoon glow is brightening the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling with delight, the soughing of the
pines is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.
CHAPTER II
The Schools of Tea
Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest qualities. We have good and bad tea, as we have
good and bad paintings--generally the latter. There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea, as there are no rules
for producing a Titian or a Sesson. Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and
heat, its own method of telling a story. The truly beautiful must always be in it. How much do we not suffer through the
constant failure of society to recognise this simple and fundamental law of art and life; Lichilai, a Sung poet, has sadly
remarked that there were three most deplorable things in the world: the spoiling of fine youths through false education,
the degradation of fine art through vulgar admiration, and the utter waste of fine tea through incompetent manipulation.
Like Art, Tea has its periods and its schools. Its evolution may be roughly divided into three main stages: the Boiled Tea,
the Whipped Tea, and the Steeped Tea. We moderns belong to the last school. These several methods of appreciating
the beverage are indicative of the spirit of the age in which they prevailed. For life is an expression, our unconscious
actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought. Confucius said that "man hideth not." Perhaps we reveal
ourselves too much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal. The tiny incidents of daily routine
are as much a commentary of racial ideals as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry. Even as the difference in favorite
vintage marks the separate idiosyncrasies of different periods and nationalities of Europe, so the Tea-ideals
characterise the various moods of Oriental culture. The Cake-tea which was boiled, the Powdered-tea which was
whipped, the Leaf-tea which was steeped, mark the distinct emotional impulses of the Tang, the Sung, and the Ming
dynasties of China. If we were inclined to borrow the much-abused terminology of art-classification, we might designate
them respectively, the Classic, the Romantic, and the Naturalistic schools of Tea.
The tea-plant, a native of southern China, was known from very early times to Chinese botany and medicine. It is alluded
to in the classics under the various names of Tou, Tseh, Chung, Kha, and Ming, and was highly prized for possessing
the virtues of relieving fatigue, delighting the soul, strengthening the will, and repairing the eyesight. It was not only
administered as an internal dose, but often applied externally in form of paste to alleviate rheumatic pains. The Taoists
claimed it as an important ingredient of the elixir of immortality. The Buddhists used it extensively to prevent drowsiness
during their long hours of meditation.
By the fourth and fifth centuries Tea became a favourite beverage among the inhabitants of the Yangtse-Kiang valley. It
was about this time that modern ideograph Cha was coined, evidently a corruption of the classic Tou. The poets of the
southern dynasties have left some fragments of their fervent adoration of the "froth of the liquid jade." Then emperors
used to bestow some rare preparation of the leaves on their high ministers as a reward for eminent services. Yet the
method of drinking tea at this stage was primitive in the extreme. The leaves were steamed, crushed in a mortar, made
into a cake, and boiled together with rice, ginger, salt, orange peel, spices, milk, and sometimes with onions! The custom
obtains at the present day among the Thibetans and various Mongolian tribes, who make a curious syrup of these
ingredients. The use of lemon slices by the Russians, who learned to take tea from the Chinese caravansaries, points to
the survival of the ancient method.
It needed the genius of the Tang dynasty to emancipate Tea from its crude state and lead to its final idealization. With
Luwuh in the middle of the eighth century we have our first apostle of tea. He was born in an age when Buddhism,
Taoism, and Confucianism were seeking mutual synthesis. The pantheistic symbolism of the time was urging one to
mirror the Universal in the Particular. Luwuh, a poet, saw in the Tea-service the same harmony and order which reigned
through all things. In his celebrated work, the "Chaking" (The Holy Scripture of Tea) he formulated the Code of Tea. He
has since been worshipped as the tutelary god of the Chinese tea merchants.
The "Chaking" consists of three volumes and ten chapters. In the first chapter Luwuh treats of the nature of the
tea-plant, in the second of the implements for gathering the leaves, in the third of the selection of the leaves. According
to him the best quality of the leaves must have "creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of
a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like
fine earth newly swept by rain."
The fourth chapter is devoted to the enumeration and description of the twenty-four members of the tea-equipage,
beginning with the tripod brazier and ending with the bamboo cabinet for containing all these utensils. Here we notice
Luwuh's predilection for Taoist symbolism. Also it is interesting to observe in this connection the influence of tea on
Chinese ceramics. The Celestial porcelain, as is well known, had its origin in an attempt to reproduce the exquisite shade
of jade, resulting, in the Tang dynasty, in the blue glaze of the south, and the white glaze of the north. Luwuh considered
the blue as the ideal colour for the tea-cup, as it lent additional greenness to the beverage, whereas the white made it
look pinkish and distasteful. It was because he used cake-tea. Later on, when the tea masters of Sung took to the
powdered tea, they preferred heavy bowls of blue-black and dark brown. The Mings, with their steeped tea, rejoiced in
light ware of white porcelain.
In the fifth chapter Luwuh describes the method of making tea. He eliminates all ingredients except salt. He dwells also
on the much-discussed question of the choice of water and the degree of boiling it. According to him, the mountain
spring is the best, the river water and the spring water come next in the order of excellence. There are three stages of
boiling: the first boil is when the little bubbles like the eye of fishes swim on the surface; the second boil is when the
bubbles are like crystal beads rolling in a fountain; the third boil is when the billows surge wildly in the kettle. The
Cake-tea is roasted before the fire until it becomes soft like a baby's arm and is shredded into powder between pieces of
fine paper. Salt is put in the first boil, the tea in the second. At the third boil, a dipperful of cold water is poured into the
kettle to settle the tea and revive the "youth of the water." Then the beverage was poured into cups and drunk. O
nectar! The filmy leaflet hung like scaly clouds in a serene sky or floated like waterlilies on emerald streams. It was of
such a beverage that Lotung, a Tang poet, wrote: "The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my
loneliness, the third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some five thousand volumes of odd ideographs.
The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration,--all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am
purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals. The seventh cup--ah, but I could take no more! I only feel
the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves. Where is Horaisan? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away
thither."
The remaining chapters of the "Chaking" treat of the vulgarity of the ordinary methods of tea-drinking, a historical
summary of illustrious tea-drinkers, the famous tea plantations of China, the possible variations of the tea-service and
illustrations of the tea-utensils. The last is unfortunately lost.
The appearance of the "Chaking" must have created considerable sensation at the time. Luwuh was befriended by the
Emperor Taisung (763-779), and his fame attracted many followers. Some exquisites were said to have been able to
detect the tea made by Luwuh from that of his disciples. One mandarin has his name immortalised by his failure to
appreciate the tea of this great master.
In the Sung dynasty the whipped tea came into fashion and created the second school of Tea. The leaves were ground
to fine powder in a small stone mill, and the preparation was whipped in hot water by a delicate whisk made of split
bamboo. The new process led to some change in the tea-equippage of Luwuh, as well as in the choice of leaves. Salt
was discarded forever. The enthusiasm of the Sung people for tea knew no bounds. Epicures vied with each other in
discovering new varieties, and regular tournaments were held to decide their superiority. The Emperor Kiasung
(1101-1124), who was too great an artist to be a well-behaved monarch, lavished his treasures on the attainment of rare
species. He himself wrote a dissertation on the twenty kinds of tea, among which he prizes the "white tea" as of the rarest
and finest quality.
The tea-ideal of the Sungs differed from the Tangs even as their notion of life differed. They sought to actualize what
their predecessors tried to symbolise. To the Neo-Confucian mind the cosmic law was not reflected in the phenomenal
world, but the phenomenal world was the cosmic law itself. Aeons were but moments--Nirvana always within grasp. The
Taoist conception that immortality lay in the eternal change permeated all their modes of thought. It was the process, not
the deed, which was interesting. It was the completing, not the completion, which was really vital. Man came thus at once
face to face with nature. A new meaning grew into the art of life. The tea began to be not a poetical pastime, but one of
the methods of self-realisation. Wangyucheng eulogised tea as "flooding his soul like a direct appeal, that its delicate
bitterness reminded him of the aftertaste of a good counsel." Sotumpa wrote of the strength of the immaculate purity in
tea which defied corruption as a truly virtuous man. Among the Buddhists, the southern Zen sect, which incorporated so
much of Taoist doctrines, formulated an elaborate ritual of tea. The monks gathered before the image of Bodhi Dharma
and drank tea out of a single bowl with the profound formality of a holy sacrament. It was this Zen ritual which finally
developed into the Tea-ceremony of Japan in the fifteenth century.
Unfortunately the sudden outburst of the Mongol tribes in the thirteenth century which resulted in the devastation and
conquest of China under the barbaric rule of the Yuen Emperors, destroyed all the fruits of Sung culture. The native
dynasty of the Mings which attempted re-nationalisation in the middle of the fifteenth century was harassed by internal
troubles, and China again fell under the alien rule of the Manchus in the seventeenth century. Manners and customs
changed to leave no vestige of the former times. The powdered tea is entirely forgotten. We find a Ming commentator at
loss to recall the shape of the tea whisk mentioned in one of the Sung classics. Tea is now taken by steeping the leaves
in hot water in a bowl or cup. The reason why the Western world is innocent of the older method of drinking tea is
explained by the fact that Europe knew it only at the close of the Ming dynasty.
To the latter-day Chinese tea is a delicious beverage, but not an ideal. The long woes of his country have robbed him of
the zest for the meaning of life. He has become modern, that is to say, old and disenchanted. He has lost that sublime
faith in illusions which constitutes the eternal youth and vigour of the poets and ancients. He is an eclectic and politely
accepts the traditions of the universe. He toys with Nature, but does not condescend to conquer or worship her. His
Leaf-tea is often wonderful with its flower-like aroma, but the romance of the Tang and Sung ceremonials are not to be
found in his cup.
Japan, which followed closely on the footsteps of Chinese civilisation, has known the tea in all its three stages. As early
as the year 729 we read of the Emperor Shomu giving tea to one hundred monks at his palace in Nara. The leaves were
probably imported by our ambassadors to the Tang Court and prepared in the way then in fashion. In 801 the monk
Saicho brought back some seeds and planted them in Yeisan. Many tea-gardens are heard of in succeeding centuries,
as well as the delight of the aristocracy and priesthood in the beverage. The Sung tea reached us in 1191 with the
return of Yeisai-zenji, who went there to study the southern Zen school. The new seeds which he carried home were
successfully planted in three places, one of which, the Uji district near Kioto, bears still the name of producing the best
tea in the world. The southern Zen spread with marvellous rapidity, and with it the tea-ritual and the tea-ideal of the
Sung. By the fifteenth century, under the patronage of the Shogun, Ashikaga-Voshinasa, the tea ceremony is fully
constituted and made into an independent and secular performance. Since then Teaism is fully established in Japan.
The use of the steeped tea of the later China is comparatively recent among us, being only known since the middle of
the seventeenth century. It has replaced the powdered tea in ordinary consumption, though the latter still continues to
hold its place as the tea of teas.
It is in the Japanese tea ceremony that we see the culmination of tea-ideals. Our successful resistance of the Mongol
invasion in 1281 had enabled us to carry on the Sung movement so disastrously cut off in China itself through the
nomadic inroad. Tea with us became more than an idealisation of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life. The
beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest
joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane. The tea-room was an oasis in the dreary waste
of existence where weary travellers could meet to drink from the common spring of art- appreciation. The ceremony was
an improvised drama whose plot was woven about the tea, the flowers, and the paintings. Not a colour to disturb the tone
of the room, not a sound to mar the rhythm of things, not a gesture to obtrude on the harmony, not a word to break the
unity of the surroundings, all movements to be performed simply and naturally--such were the aims of the tea- ceremony.
And strangely enough it was often successful. A subtle philosophy lay behind it all. Teaism was Taoism in disguise.
CHAPTER III
Taoism and Zennism
The connection of Zennism with tea is proverbial. We have already remarked that the tea-ceremony was a development
of the Zen ritual. The name of Laotse, the founder of Taoism, is also intimately associated with the history of tea. It is
written in the Chinese school manual concerning the origin of habits and customs that the ceremony of offering tea to a
guest began with Kwanyin, a well-known disciple of Laotse, who first at the gate of the Han Pass presented to the "Old
Philosopher" a cup of the golden elixir. We shall not stop to discuss the authenticity of such tales, which are valuable,
however, as confirming the early use of the beverage by the Taoists. Our interest in Taoism and Zennism here lies
mainly in those ideas regarding life and art which are so embodied in what we call Teaism.
It is to be regretted that as yet there appears to be no adequate presentation of the Taoists and Zen doctrines in any
foreign language, though we have had several laudable attempts.
Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a
brocade,--all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design. But, after all, what great doctrine is there
which is easy to expound? The ancient sages never put their teachings in systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for
they were afraid of uttering half-truths. They began by talking like fools and ended by making their hearers wise. Laotse
himself, with his quaint humour, says, "If people of inferior intelligence hear of the Tao, they laugh immensely. It would
not be the Tao unless they laughed at it."
The Tao literally means a Path. It has been severally translated as the Way, the Absolute, the Law, Nature, Supreme
Reason, the Mode. These renderings are not incorrect, for the use of the term by the Taoists differs according to the
subject-matter of the inquiry. Laotse himself spoke of it thus: "There is a thing which is all-containing, which was born
before the existence of Heaven and Earth. How silent! How solitary! It stands alone and changes not. It revolves without
danger to itself and is the mother of the universe. I do not know its name and so call it the Path. With reluctance I call it
the Infinite. Infinity is the Fleeting, the Fleeting is the Vanishing, the Vanishing is the Reverting." The Tao is in the
Passage rather than the Path. It is the spirit of Cosmic Change,--the eternal growth which returns upon itself to produce
new forms. It recoils upon itself like the dragon, the beloved symbol of the Taoists. It folds and unfolds as do the clouds.
The Tao might be spoken of as the Great Transition. Subjectively it is the Mood of the Universe. Its Absolute is the
Relative.
It should be remembered in the first place that Taoism, like its legitimate successor Zennism, represents the
individualistic trend of the Southern Chinese mind in contra-distinction to the communism of Northern China which
expressed itself in Confucianism. The Middle Kingdom is as vast as Europe and has a differentiation of idiosyncrasies
marked by the two great river systems which traverse it. The Yangste-Kiang and Hoang- Ho are respectively the
Mediterranean and the Baltic. Even to-day, in spite of centuries of unification, the Southern Celestial differs in his
thoughts and beliefs from his Northern brother as a member of the Latin race differs from the Teuton. In ancient days,
when communication was even more difficult than at present, and especially during the feudal period, this difference in
thought was most pronounced. The art and poetry of the one breathes an atmosphere entirely distinct from that of the
other. In Laotse and his followers and in Kutsugen, the forerunner of the Yangtse-Kiang nature-poets, we find an
idealism quite inconsistent with the prosaic ethical notions of their contemporary northern writers. Laotse lived five
centuries before the Christian Era.
The germ of Taoist speculation may be found long before the advent of Laotse, surnamed the Long-Eared. The archaic
records of China, especially the Book of Changes, foreshadow his thought. But the great respect paid to the laws and
customs of that classic period of Chinese civilisation which culminated with the establishment of the Chow dynasty in the
sixteenth century B.C., kept the development of individualism in check for a long while, so that it was not until after the
disintegration of the Chow dynasty and the establishment of innumerable independent kingdoms that it was able to
blossom forth in the luxuriance of free-thought. Laotse and Soshi (Chuangtse) were both Southerners and the greatest
exponents of the New School. On the other hand, Confucius with his numerous disciples aimed at retaining ancestral
conventions. Taoism cannot be understood without some knowledge of Confucianism and vice versa.
We have said that the Taoist Absolute was the Relative. In ethics the Taoist railed at the laws and the moral codes of
society, for to them right and wrong were but relative terms. Definition is always limitation--the "fixed" and "unchangeless"
are but terms expressive of a stoppage of growth. Said Kuzugen,--"The Sages move the world." Our standards of
morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance of
communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the mighty
delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly. We
are wicked because we are frightfully self-conscious. We nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth to
others; we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the
world when the world itself is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is everywhere. Honour and Chastity! Behold the
complacent salesman retailing the Good and True. One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts
thrive marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap, --a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable
citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be
knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so
much? Is it not but an instinct derived from the days of slavery?
The virility of the idea lies not less in its power of breaking through contemporary thought than in its capacity for
dominating subsequent movements. Taoism was an active power during the Shin dynasty, that epoch of Chinese
unification from which we derive the name China. It would be interesting had we time to note its influence on
contemporary thinkers, the mathemeticians, writers on law and war, the mystics and alchemists and the later
nature-poets of the Yangste-Kiang. We should not even ignore those speculators on Reality who doubted whether a
white horse was real because he was white, or because he was solid, nor the Conversationalists of the Six dynasties
who, like the Zen philosophers, revelled in discussions concerning the Pure and the Abstract. Above all we should pay
homage to Taoism for what it has done toward the formation of the Celestial character, giving to it a certain capacity for
reserve and refinement as "warm as jade." Chinese history is full of instances in which the votaries of Taoism, princes
and hermits alike, followed with varied and interesting results the teachings of their creed. The tale will not be without its
quota of instruction and amusement. It will be rich in anecdotes, allegories, and aphorisms. We would fain be on
speaking terms with the delightful emperor who never died because he had never lived. We may ride the wind with
Liehtse and find it absolutely quiet because we ourselves are the wind, or dwell in mid-air with the Aged one of the
Hoang-Ho, who lived betwixt Heaven and Earth because he was subject to neither the one nor the other. Even in that
grotesque apology for Taoism which we find in China at the present day, we can revel in a wealth of imagery impossible
to find in any other cult.
But the chief contribution of Taoism to Asiatic life has been in the realm of aesthetics. Chinese historians have always
spoken of Taoism as the "art of being in the world," for it deals with the present--ourselves. It is in us that God meets with
Nature, and yesterday parts from to-morrow. The Present is the moving Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the Relative.
Relativity seeks Adjustment; Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings. Taoism
accepts the mundane as it is and, unlike the Confucians or the Buddhists, tries to find beauty in our world of woe and
worry. The Sung allegory of the Three Vinegar Tasters explains admirably the trend of the three doctrines. Sakyamuni,
Confucius, and Laotse once stood before a jar of vinegar--the emblem of life--and each dipped in his finger to taste the
brew. The matter-of-fact Confucius found it sour, the Buddha called it bitter, and Laotse pronounced it sweet.
The Taoists claimed that the comedy of life could be made more interesting if everyone would preserve the unities. To
keep the proportion of things and give place to others without losing one's own position was the secret of success in the
mundane drama. We must know the whole play in order to properly act our parts; the conception of totality must never
be lost in that of the individual. This Laotse illustrates by his favourite metaphor of the Vacuum. He claimed that only in
vacuum lay the truly essential. The reality of a room, for instance, was to be found in the vacant space enclosed by the
roof and the walls, not in the roof and walls themselves. The usefulness of a water pitcher dwelt in the emptiness where
water might be put, not in the form of the pitcher or the material of which it was made. Vacuum is all potent because all
containing. In vacuum alone motion becomes possible. One who could make of himself a vacuum into which others might
freely enter would become master of all situations. The whole can always dominate the part.
These Taoists' ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu-jitsu,
the Japanese art of self-defence, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-teking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw out and
exhaust the enemy's strength by non-resistance, vacuum, while conserving one's own strength for victory in the final
struggle. In art the importance of the same principle is illustrated by the value of suggestion. In leaving something unsaid
the beholder is given a chance to complete the idea and thus a great masterpiece irresistably rivets your attention until
you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up the full measure of your aesthetic
emotion.
He whohad made himself master of the art of living was the Real man of the Taoist. At birth he enters the realm of
dreams only to awaken to reality at death. He tempers his own brightness in order to merge himself into the obscurity of
others. He is "reluctant, as one who crosses a stream in winter; hesitating as one who fears the neighbourhood;
respectful, like a guest; trembling, like ice that is about to melt; unassuming, like a piece of wood not yet carved; vacant,
like a valley; formless, like troubled waters." To him the three jewls of life were Pity, Economy, and Modesty.
If now we turn our attention to Zennism we shall find that it emphasises the teachings of Taoism. Zen is a name derived
from the Sanscrit word Dhyana, which signifies meditation. It claims that through consecrated meditation may be attained
supreme self-realisation. Meditation is one of the six ways through which Buddhahood may be reached, and the Zen
sectarians affirm that Sakyamuni laid special stress on this method in his later teachings, handing down the rules to his
chief disciple Kashiapa. According to their tradition Kashiapa, the first Zen patriarch, imparted the secret to Ananda, who
in turn passed it on to successive patriarchs until it reached Bodhi-Dharma, the twenty-eighth. Bodhi-Dharma came to
Northern China in the early half of the sixth century and was the first patriarch of Chinese Zen. There is much uncertainty
about the history of these patriarchs and their doctrines. In its philosophical aspect early Zennism seems to have affinity
on one hand to the Indian Negativism of Nagarjuna and on the other to the Gnan philosophy formulated by
Sancharacharya. The first teaching of Zen as we know it at the present day must be attributed to the sixth Chinese
patriarch Yeno(637-713), founder of Southern Zen, so-called from the fact of its predominance in Southern China. He is
closely followed by the great Baso(died 788) who made of Zen a living influence in Celestial life. Hiakujo(719-814) the
pupil of Baso, first instituted the Zen monastery and established a ritual and regulations for its government. In the
discussions of the Zen school after the time of Baso we find the play of the Yangtse-Kiang mind causing an accession of
native modes of thought in contrast to the former Indian idealism. Whatever sectarian pride may assert to the contrary
one cannot help being impressed by the similarity of Southern Zen to the teachings of Laotse and the Taoist
Conversationalists. In the Tao-teking we already find allusions to the importance of self-concentration and the need of
properly regulating the breath--essential points in the practice of Zen meditation. Some of the best commentaries on the
Book of Laotse have been written by Zen scholars.
Zennism, like Taoism, is the worship of Relativity. One master defines Zen as the art of feeling the polar star in the
southern sky. Truth can be reached only through the comprehension of opposites. Again, Zennism, like Taoism, is a
strong advocate of individualism. Nothing is real except that which concerns the working of our own minds. Yeno, the
sixth patriarch, once saw two monks watching the flag of a pagoda fluttering in the wind. One said "It is the wind that
moves," the other said "It is the flag that moves"; but Yeno explained to them that the real movement was neither of the
wind nor the flag, but of something within their own minds. Hiakujo was walking in the forest with a disciple when a hare
scurried off at their approach. "Why does the hare fly from you?" asked Hiakujo. "Because he is afraid of me," was the
answer. "No," said the master, "it is because you have murderous instinct." The dialogue recalls that of Soshi
(Chauntse), the Taoist. One day Soshi was walking on the bank of a river with a friend. "How delightfully the fishes are
enjoying themselves in the water!" exclaimed Soshi. His friend spake to him thus: "You are not a fish; how do you know
that the fishes are enjoying themselves?" "You are not myself," returned Soshi; "how do you know that I do not know that
the fishes are enjoying themselves?"
Zen was often opposed to the precepts of orthodox Buddhism even as Taoism was opposed to Confucianism. To the
transcendental insight of the Zen, words were but an incumberance to thought; the whole sway of Buddhist scriptures
only commentaries on personal speculation. The followers of Zen aimed at direct communion with the inner nature of
things, regarding their outward accessories only as impediments to a clear perception of Truth. It was this love of the
Abstract that led the Zen to prefer black and white sketches to the elaborately coloured paintings of the classic Buddhist
School. Some of the Zen even became iconoclastic as a result of their endeavor to recognise the Buddha in themselves
rather than through images and symbolism. We find Tankawosho breaking up a wooden statue of Buddha on a wintry
day to make a fire. "What sacrilege!" said the horror-stricken bystander. "I wish to get the Shali out of the ashes," camply
rejoined the Zen. "But you certainly will not get Shali from this image!" was the angry retort, to which Tanka replied, "If I
do not, this is certainly not a Buddha and I am committing no sacrilege." Then he turned to warm himself over the
kindling fire.
A special contribution of Zen to Easthern thought was its recognition of the mundane as of equal importance with the
spiritual. It held that in the great relation of things there was no distinction of small and great, an atom posessing equal
possibilites with the universe. The seeker for perfection must discover in his own life the reflection of the inner light. The
organisation of the Zen monastery was very significant of this point of view. To every member, except the abbot, was
assigned some special work in the caretaking of the monastery, and curiously enough, to the novices was committed the
lighter duties, while to the most respected and advanced monks were given the more irksome and menial tasks. Such
services formed a part of the Zen discipline and every least action must be done absolutely perfectly. Thus many a
weighty discussion ensued while weeding the garden, paring a turnip, or serving tea. The whole ideal of Teaism is a
result of this Zen conception of greatness in the smallest incidents of life. Taoism furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals,
Zennism made them practical.
CHAPTER IV
The Tea-Room
To European architects brought up on the traditions of stone and brick construction, our Japanese method of building
with wood and bamboo seems scarcely worthy to be ranked as architecture. It is but quite recently that a competent
student of Western architecture has recognised and paid tribute to the remarkable perfection of our great temples. Such
being the case as regards our classic architecture, we could hardly expect the outsider to appreciate the subtle beauty
of the tea-room, its principles of construction and decoration being entirely different from those of the West.
The tea-room (the Sukiya) does not pretend to be other than a mere cottage--a straw hut, as we call it. The original
ideographs for Sukiya mean the Abode of Fancy. Latterly the various tea-masters substituted various Chinese
characters according to their conception of the tea-room, and the term Sukiya may signify the Abode of Vacancy or the
Abode of the Unsymmetrical. It is an Abode of Fancy inasmuch as it is an ephemeral structure built to house a poetic
impulse. It is an Abode of Vacancy inasmuch as it is devoid of ornamentation except for what may be placed in it to
satisfy some aesthetic need of the moment. It is an Abode of the Unsymmetrical inasmuch as it is consecrated to the
worship of the Imperfect, purposely leaving some thing unfinished for the play of the imagination to complete. The ideals
of Teaism have since the sixteenth century influenced our architecture to such degree that the ordinary Japanese
interior of the present day, on account of the extreme simplicity and chasteness of its scheme of decoration, appears to
foreigners almost barren.
The first independent tea-room was the creation of Senno-Soyeki, commonly known by his later name of Rikiu, the
greatest of all tea-masters, who, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Taiko-Hideyoshi, instituted and brought
to a high state of perfection the formalities of the Tea-ceremony. The proportions of the tea-room had been previously
determined by Jowo--a famous tea-master of the fifteenth century. The early tea-room consisted merely of a portion of
the ordinary drawing-room partitioned off by screens for the purpose of the tea-gathering. The portion partitioned off
was called the Kakoi (enclosure), a name still applied to those tea-rooms which are built into a house and are not
independent constructions. The Sukiya consists of the tea-room proper, designed to accomodate not more than five
persons, a number suggestive of the saying "more than the Graces and less than the Muses," an anteroom (midsuya)
where the tea utensils are washed and arranged before being brought in, a portico (machiai) in which the guests wait
until they receive the summons to enter the tea-room, and a garden path (the roji) which connects the machiai with the
tea-room. The tea-room is unimpressive in appearance. It is smaller than the smallest of Japanese houses, while the
materials used in its construction are intended to give the suggestion of refined poverty. Yet we must remember that all
this is the result of profound artistic forethought, and that the details have been worked out with care perhaps even
greater than that expended on the building of the richest palaces and temples. A good tea-room is more costly than an
ordinary mansion, for the selection of its materials, as well as its workmanship, requires immense care and precision.
Indeed, the carpenters employed by the tea-masters form a distinct and highly honoured class among artisans, their
work being no less delicate than that of the makers of lacquer cabinets.
The tea-room is not only different from any production of Western architecture, but also contrasts strongly with the
classical architecture of Japan itself. Our ancient noble edifices, whether secular or ecclesiastical, were not to be
despised even as regards their mere size. The few that have been spared in the disastrous conflagrations of centuries
are still capable of aweing us by the grandeur and richness of their decoration. Huge pillars of wood from two to three
feet in diameter and from thirty to forty feet high, supported, by a complicated network of brackets, the enormous beams
which groaned under the weight of the tile-covered roofs. The material and mode of construction, though weak against
fire, proved itself strong against earthquakes, and was well suited to the climatic conditions of the country. In the Golden
Hall of Horiuji and the Pagoda of Yakushiji, we have noteworthy examples of the durability of our wooden architecture.
These buildings have practically stood intact for nearly twelve centuries. The interior of the old temples and palaces was
profusely decorated. In the Hoodo temple at Uji, dating from the tenth century, we can still see the elaborate canopy and
gilded baldachinos, many-coloured and inlaid with mirrors and mother-of-pearl, as well as remains of the paintings and
sculpture which formerly covered the walls. Later, at Nikko and in the Nijo castle in Kyoto, we see structural beauty
sacrificed to a wealth of ornamentation which in colour and exquisite detail equals the utmost gorgeousness of Arabian
or Moorish effort.
The simplicity and purism of the tea-room resulted from emulation of the Zen monastery. A Zen monastery differs from
those of other Buddhist sects inasmuch as it is meant only to be a dwelling place for the monks. Its chapel is not a place
of worship or pilgrimage, but a college room where the students congregate for discussion and the practice of
meditation. The room is bare except for a central alcove in which, behind the altar, is a statue of Bodhi Dharma, the
founder of the sect, or of Sakyamuni attended by Kaphiapa and Ananda, the two earliest Zen patriarchs. On the altar,
flowers and incense are offered up in the memory of the great contributions which these sages made to Zen. We have
already said that it was the ritual instituted by the Zen monks of successively drinking tea out of a bowl before the image
of Bodhi Dharma, which laid the foundations of the tea-ceremony. We might add here that the altar of the Zen chapel
was the prototype of the Tokonoma,--the place of honour in a Japanese room where paintings and flowers are placed for
the edification of the guests.
All our great tea-masters were students of Zen and attempted to introduce the spirit of Zennism into the actualities of life.
Thus the room, like the other equipments of the tea-ceremony, reflects many of the Zen doctrines. The size of the
orthodox tea-room, which is four mats and a half, or ten feet square, is determined by a passage in the Sutra of
Vikramadytia. In that interesting work, Vikramadytia welcomes the Saint Manjushiri and eighty-four thousand disciples of
Buddha in a room of this size,--an allegory based on the theory of the non-existence of space to the truly enlightened.
Again the roji, the garden path which leads from the machiai to the tea-room, signified the first stage of meditation,--the
passage into self-illumination. The roji was intended to break connection with the outside world, and produce a fresh
sensation conducive to the full enjoyment of aestheticism in the tea-room itself. One who has trodden this garden path
cannot fail to remember how his spirit, as he walked in the twilight of evergreens over the regular irregularities of the
stepping stones, beneath which lay dried pine needles, and passed beside the moss-covered granite lanterns, became
uplifted above ordinary thoughts. One may be in the midst of a city, and yet feel as if he were in the forest far away from
the dust and din of civilisation. Great was the ingenuity displayed by the tea-masters in producing these effects of
serenity and purity. The nature of the sensations to be aroused in passing through the roji differed with different
tea-masters. Some, like Rikiu, aimed at utter loneliness, and claimed the secret of making a roji was contained in the
ancient ditty: "I look beyond;/Flowers are not,/Nor tinted leaves./On the sea beach/ A solitary cottage stands/In the
waning light/Of an autumn eve."
Others, like Kobori-Enshiu, sought for a different effect. Enshiu said the idea of the garden path was to be found in the
following verses: "A cluster of summer trees,/A bit of the sea,/A pale evening moon." It is not difficult to gather his
meaning. He wished to create the attitude of a newly awakened soul still lingering amid shadowy dreams of the past, yet
bathing in the sweet unconsciousness of a mellow spiritual light, and yearning for the freedom that lay in the expanse
beyond.
Thus prepared the guest will silently approach the sanctuary, and, if a samurai, will leave his sword on the rack beneath
the eaves, the tea-room being preeminently the house of peace. Then he will bend low and creep into the room through
a small door not more than three feet in height. This proceeding was incumbent on all guests,--high and low alike,--and
was intended to inculcate humility. The order of precedence having been mutually agreed upon while resting in the
machiai, the guests one by one will enter noiselessly and take their seats, first making obeisance to the picture or flower
arrangement on the tokonoma. The host will not enter the room until all the guests have seated themselves and quiet
reigns with nothing to break the silence save the note of the boiling water in the iron kettle. The kettle sings well, for
pieces of iron are so arranged in the bottom as to produce a peculiar melody in which one may hear the echoes of a
cataract muffled by clouds, of a distant sea breaking among the rocks, a rainstorm sweeping through a bamboo forest,
or of the soughing of pines on some faraway hill.
Even in the daytime the light in the room is subdued, for the low eaves of the slanting roof admit but few of the sun's
rays. Everything is sober in tint from the ceiling to the floor; the guests themselves have carefully chosen garments of
unobtrusive colors. The mellowness of age is over all, everything suggestive of recent acquirement being tabooed save
only the one note of contrast furnished by the bamboo dipper and the linen napkin, both immaculately white and new.
However faded the tea-room and the tea-equipage may seem, everything is absolutely clean. Not a particle of dust will
be found in the darkest corner, for if any exists the host is not a tea-master. One of the first requisites of a tea-master is
the knowledge of how to sweep, clean, and wash, for there is an art in cleaning and dusting. A piece of antique metal
work must not be attacked with the unscrupulous zeal of the Dutch housewife. Dripping water from a flower vase need
not be wiped away, for it may be suggestive of dew and coolness.
In this connection there is a story of Rikiu which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the tea-masters.
Rikiu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikiu, when
Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikiu: "Father, there is nothing
more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with
water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground." "Young fool,"
chided the tea-master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikiu stepped into the garden,
shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn! What Rikiu
demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also.
The name, Abode of Fancy, implies a structure created to meet some individual artistic requirement. The tea-room is
made for the tea master, not the tea-master for the tea-room. It is not intended for posterity and is therefore ephemeral.
The idea that everyone should have a house of his own is based on an ancient custom of the Japanese race, Shinto
superstition ordaining that every dwelling should be evacuated on the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps there may
have been some unrealized sanitary reason for this practice. Another early custom was that a newly built house should
be provided for each couple that married. It is on account of such customs that we find the Imperial capitals so frequently
removed from one site to another in ancient days. The rebuilding, every twenty years, of Ise Temple, the supreme shrine
of the Sun-Goddess, is an example of one of these ancient rites which still obtain at the present day. The observance of
these customs was only possible with some form of construction as that furnished by our system of wooden architecture,
easily pulled down, easily built up. A more lasting style, employing brick and stone, would have rendered migrations
impracticable, as indeed they became when the more stable and massive wooden construction of China was adopted by
us after the Nara period.
With the predominance of Zen individualism in the fifteenth century, however, the old idea became imbued with a deeper
significance as conceived in connection with the tea-room. Zennism, with the Buddhist theory of evanescence and its
demands for the mastery of spirit over matter, recognized the house only as a temporary refuge for the body. The body
itself was but as a hut in the wilderness, a flimsy shelter made by tying together the grasses that grew around,--when
these ceased to be bound together they again became resolved into the original waste. In the tea-room fugitiveness is
suggested in the thatched roof, frailty in the slender pillars, lightness in the bamboo support, apparent carelessness in
the use of commonplace materials. The eternal is to be found only in the spirit which, embodied in these simple
surroundings, beautifies them with the subtle light of its refinement.
That the tea-room should be built to suit some individual taste is an enforcement of the principle of vitality in art. Art, to
be fully appreciated, must be true to contemporaneous life. It is not that we should ignore the claims of posterity, but that
we should seek to enjoy the present more. It is not that we should disregard the creations of the past, but that we should
try to assimilate them into our consciousness. Slavish conformity to traditions and formulas fetters the expression of
individuality in architecture. We can but weep over the senseless imitations of European buildings which one beholds in
modern Japan. We marvel why, among the most progressive Western nations, architecture should be so devoid of
originality, so replete with repetitions of obsolete styles. Perhaps we are passing through an age of democritisation in art,
while awaiting the rise of some princely master who shall establish a new dynasty. Would that we loved the ancients more
and copied them less! It has been said that the Greeks were great because they never drew from the antique.
The term, Abode of Vacancy, besides conveying the Taoist theory of the all-containing, involves the conception of a
continued need of change in decorative motives. The tea-room is absolutely empty, except for what may be placed there
temporarily to satisfy some aesthetic mood. Some special art object is brought in for the occasion, and everything else is
selected and arranged to enhance the beauty of the principal theme. One cannot listen to different pieces of music at
the same time, a real comprehension of the beautiful being possible only through concentration upon some central
motive. Thus it will be seen that the system of decoration in our tea-rooms is opposed to that which obtains in the West,
where the interior of a house is often converted into a museum. To a Japanese, accustomed to simplicity of
ornamentation and frequent change of decorative method, a Western interior permanently filled with a vast array of
pictures, statuary, and bric-a-brac gives the impression of mere vulgar display of riches. It calls for a mighty wealth of
appreciation to enjoy the constant sight of even a masterpiece, and limitless indeed must be the capacity for artistic
feeling in those who can exist day after day in the midst of such confusion of color and form as is to be often seen in the
homes of Europe and America.
The "Abode of the Unsymmetrical" suggests another phase of our decorative scheme. The absence of symmetry in
Japanese art objects has been often commented on by Western critics. This, also, is a result of a working out through
Zennism of Taoist ideals. Confucianism, with its deep-seated idea of dualism, and Northern Buddhism with its worship of
a trinity, were in no way opposed to the expression of symmetry. As a matter of fact, if we study the ancient bronzes of
China or the religious arts of the Tang dynasty and the Nara period, we shall recognize a constant striving after
symmetry. The decoration of our classical interiors was decidedly regular in its arrangement. The Taoist and Zen
conception of perfection, however, was different. The dynamic nature of their philosophy laid more stress upon the
process through which perfection was sought than upon perfection itself. True beauty could be discovered only by one
who mentally completed the incomplete. The virility of life and art lay in its possibilities for growth. In the tea-room it is left
for each guest in imagination to complete the total effect in relation to himself. Since Zennism has become the prevailing
mode of thought, the art of the extreme Orient has purposefully avoided the symmetrical as expressing not only
completion, but repetition. Uniformity of design was considered fatal to the freshness of imagination. Thus, landscapes,
birds, and flowers became the favorite subjects for depiction rather than the human figure, the latter being present in the
person of the beholder himself. We are often too much in evidence as it is, and in spite of our vanity even self-regard is
apt to become monotonous.
In the tea-room the fear of repetition is a constant presence. The various objects for the decoration of a room should be
so selected that no colour or design shall be repeated. If you have a living flower, a painting of flowers is not allowable. If
you are using a round kettle, the water pitcher should be angular. A cup with a black glaze should not be associated with
a tea-caddy of black laquer. In placing a vase of an incense burner on the tokonoma, care should be taken not to put it
in the exact centre, lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the tokonoma should be of a different kind of
wood from the other pillars, in order to break any suggestion of monotony in the room.
Here again the Japanese method of interior decoration differs from that of the Occident, where we see objects arrayed
symmetrically on mantelpieces and elsewhere. In Western houses we are often confronted with what appears to us
useless reiteration. We find it trying to talk to a man while his full-length portrait stares at us from behind his back. We
wonder which is real, he of the picture or he who talks, and feel a curious conviction that one of them must be fraud.
Many a time have we sat at a festive board contemplating, with a secret shock to our digestion, the representation of
abundance on the dining-room walls. Why these pictured victims of chase and sport, the elaborate carvings of fishes
and fruit? Why the display of family plates, reminding us of those who have dined and are dead?
The simplicity of the tea-room and its freedom from vulgarity make it truly a sanctuary from the vexations of the outer
world. There and there alone one can consecrate himself to undisturbed adoration of the beautiful. In the sixteenth
century the tea-room afforded a welcome respite from labour to the fierce warriors and statesmen engaged in the
unification and reconstruction of Japan. In the seventeenth century, after the strict formalism of the Tokugawa rule had
been developed, it offered the only opportunity possible for the free communion of artistic spirits. Before a great work of
art there was no distinction between daimyo, samurai, and commoner. Nowadays industrialism is making true refinement
more and more difficult all the world over. Do we not need the tea-room more than ever?
CHAPTER V
Art Appreciation
Have you heard the Taoist tale of the Taming of the Harp?
Once in the hoary ages in the Ravine of Lungmen stood a Kiri tree, a veritable king of the forest. It reared its head to talk
to the stars; its roots struck deep into the earth, mingling their bronzed coils with those of the silver dragon that slept
beneath. And it came to pass that a mighty wizard made of this tree a wondrous harp, whose stubborn spirit should be
tamed but by the greatest of musicians. For long the instrument was treasured by the Emperor of China, but all in vain
were the efforts of those who in turn tried to draw melody from its strings. In response to their utmost strivings there
came from the harp but harsh notes of disdain, ill-according with the songs they fain would sing. The harp refused to
recognise a master.
At last came Peiwoh, the prince of harpists. With tender hand he caressed the harp as one might seek to soothe an
unruly horse, and softly touched the chords. He sang of nature and the seasons, of high mountains and flowing waters,
and all the memories of the tree awoke! Once more the sweet breath of spring played amidst its branches. The young
cataracts, as they danced down the ravine, laughed to the budding flowers. Anon were heard the dreamy voices of
summer with its myriad insects, the gentle pattering of rain, the wail of the cuckoo. Hark! a tiger roars,--the valley
answers again. It is autumn; in the desert night, sharp like a sword gleams the moon upon the frosted grass. Now winter
reigns, and through the snow-filled air swirl flocks of swans and rattling hailstones beat upon the boughs with fierce
delight.
Then Peiwoh changed the key and sang of love. The forest swayed like an ardent swain deep lost in thought. On high,
like a haughty maiden, swept a cloud bright and fair; but passing, trailed long shadows on the ground, black like despair.
Again the mode was changed; Peiwoh sang of war, of clashing steel and trampling steeds. And in the harp arose the
tempest of Lungmen, the dragon rode the lightning, the thundering avalanche crashed through the hills. In ecstasy the
Celestial monarch asked Peiwoh wherein lay the secret of his victory. "Sire," he replied, "others have failed because they
sang but of themselves. I left the harp to choose its theme, and knew not truly whether the harp had been Peiwoh or
Peiwoh were the harp."
This story well illustrates the mystery of art appreciation. The masterpiece is a symphony played upon our finest feelings.
True art is Peiwoh, and we the harp of Lungmen. At the magic touch of the beautiful the secret chords of our being are
awakened, we vibrate and thrill in response to its call. Mind speaks to mind. We listen to the unspoken, we gaze upon the
unseen. The master calls forth notes we know not of. Memories long forgotten all come back to us with a new
significance. Hopes stifled by fear, yearnings that we dare not recognise, stand forth in new glory. Our mind is the
canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the
shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.
The sympathetic communion of minds necessary for art appreciation must be based on mutual concession. The
spectator must cultivate the proper attitude for receiving the message, as the artist must know how to impart it. The
tea-master, Kobori-Enshiu, himself a daimyo, has left to us these memorable words: "Approach a great painting as thou
wouldst approach a great prince." In order to understand a masterpiece, you must lay yourself low before it and await
with bated breath its least utterance. An eminent Sung critic once made a charming confession. Said he: "In my young
days I praised the master whose pictures I liked, but as my judgement matured I praised myself for liking what the
masters had chosen to have me like." It is to be deplored that so few of us really take pains to study the moods of the
masters. In our stubborn ignorance we refuse to render them this simple courtesy, and thus often miss the rich repast of
beauty spread before our very eyes. A master has always something to offer, while we go hungry solely because of our
own lack of appreciation.
To the sympathetic a masterpiece becomes a living reality towards which we feel drawn in bonds of comradeship. The
masters are immortal, for their loves and fears live in us over and over again. It is rather the soul than the hand, the man
than the technique, which appeals to us,--the more human the call the deeper is our response. It is because of this
secret understanding between the master and ourselves that in poetry or romance we suffer and rejoice with the hero
and heroine. Chikamatsu, our Japanese Shakespeare, has laid down as one of the first principles of dramatic
composition the importance of taking the audience into the confidence of the author. Several of his pupils submitted
plays for his approval, but only one of the pieces appealed to him. It was a play somewhat resembling the Comedy of
Errors, in which twin brethren suffer through mistaken identity. "This," said Chikamatsu, "has the proper spirit of the
drama, for it takes the audience into consideration. The public is permitted to know more than the actors. It knows where
the mistake lies, and pities the poor figures on the board who innocently rush to their fate."
The great masters both of the East and the West never forgot the value of suggestion as a means for taking the
spectator into their confidence. Who can contemplate a masterpiece without being awed by the immense vista of thought
presented to our consideration? How familiar and sympathetic are they all; how cold in contrast the modern
commonplaces! In the former we feel the warm outpouring of a man's heart; in the latter only a formal salute. Engrossed
in his technique, the modern rarely rises above himself. Like the musicians who vainly invoked the Lungmen harp, he
sings only of himself. His works may be nearer science, but are further from humanity. We have an old saying in Japan
that a woman cannot love a man who is truly vain, for their is no crevice in his heart for love to enter and fill up. In art
vanity is equally fatal to sympathetic feeling, whether on the part of the artist or the public.
Nothing is more hallowing than the union of kindred spirits in art. At the moment of meeting, the art lover transcends
himself. At once he is and is not. He catches a glimpse of Infinity, but words cannot voice his delight, for the eye has no
tongue. Freed from the fetters of matter, his spirit moves in the rhythm of things. It is thus that art becomes akin to
religion and ennobles mankind. It is this which makes a masterpiece something sacred. In the old days the veneration in
which the Japanese held the work of the great artist was intense. The tea-masters guarded their treasures with religious
secrecy, and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes, one within another, before reaching the shrine
itself--the silken wrapping within whose soft folds lay the holy of holies. Rarely was the object exposed to view, and then
only to the initiated.
At the time when Teaism was in the ascendency the Taiko's generals would be better satisfied with the present of a rare
work of art than a large grant of territory as a reward of victory. Many of our favourite dramas are based on the loss and
recovery of a noted masterpiece. For instance, in one play the palace of Lord Hosokawa, in which was preserved the
celebrated painting of Dharuma by Sesson, suddenly takes fire through the negligence of the samurai in charge.
Resolved at all hazards to rescue the precious painting, he rushes into the burning building and seizes the kakemono,
only to find all means of exit cut off by the flames. Thinking only of the picture, he slashes open his body with his sword,
wraps his torn sleeve about the Sesson and plunges it into the gaping wound. The fire is at last extinguished. Among the
smoking embers is found a half- consumed corps, within which reposes the treasure uninjured by the fire. Horrible as
such tales are, they illustrate the great value that we set upon a masterpiece, as well as the devotion of a trusted
samurai.
We must remember, however, that art is of value only to the extent that it speaks to us. It might be a universal language
if we ourselves were universal in our sympathies. Our finite nature, the power of tradition and conventionality, as well as
our hereditary instincts, restrict the scope of our capacity for artistic enjoyment. Our very individuality establishes in one
sense a limit to our understanding; and our aesthetic personality seeks its own affinities in the creations of the past. It is
true that with cultivation our sense of art appreciation broadens, and we become able to enjoy many hitherto
unrecognised expressions of beauty. But, after all, we see only our own image in the universe,--our particular
idiosyncracies dictate the mode of our perceptions. The tea- masters collected only objects which fell strictly within the
measure of their individual appreciation.
One is reminded in this connection of a story concerning Kobori-Enshiu. Enshiu was complimented by his disciples on
the admirable taste he had displayed in the choice of his collection. Said they, "Each piece is such that no one could
help admiring. It shows that you had better taste than had Rikiu, for his collection could only be appreciated by one
beholder in a thousand." Sorrowfully Enshiu replied: "This only proves how commonplace I am. The great Rikiu dared to
love only those objects which personally appealed to him, whereas I unconsciously cater to the taste of the majority.
Verily, Rikiu was one in a thousand among tea-masters."
It is much to be regretted that so much of the apparent enthusiasm for art at the present day has no foundation in real
feeling. In this democratic age of ours men clamour for what is popularly considered the best, regardless of their
feelings. They want the costly, not the refined; the fashionable, not the beautiful. To the masses, contemplation of
illustrated periodicals, the worthy product of their own industrialism, would give more digestible food for artistic enjoyment
than the early Italians or the Ashikaga masters, whom they pretend to admire. The name of the artist is more important to
them than the quality of the work. As a Chinese critic complained many centuries ago, "People criticise a picture by their
ear." It is this lack of genuine appreciation that is responsible for the pseudo-classic horrors that to-day greet us
wherever we turn.
Another common mistake is that of confusing art with archaeology. The veneration born of antiquity is one of the best
traits in the human character, and fain would we have it cultivated to a greater extent. The old masters are rightly to be
honoured for opening the path to future enlightenment. The mere fact that they have passed unscathed through
centuries of criticism and come down to us still covered with glory commands our respect. But we should be foolish
indeed if we valued their achievement simply on the score of age. Yet we allow our historical sympathy to override our
aesthetic discrimination. We offer flowers of approbation when the artist is safely laid in his grave. The nineteenth
century, pregnant with the theory of evolution, has moreover created in us the habit of losing sight of the individual in the
species. A collector is anxious to acquire specimens to illustrate a period or a school, and forgets that a single
masterpiece can teach us more than any number of the mediocre products of a given period or school. We classify too
much and enjoy too little. The sacrifice of the aesthetic to the so-called scientific method of exhibition has been the bane
of many museums.
The claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life. The art of to-day is that which really
belongs to us: it is our own reflection. In condemning it we but condemn ourselves. We say that the present age
possesses no art:--who is responsible for this? It is indeed a shame that despite all our rhapsodies about the ancients
we pay so little attention to our own possibilities. Struggling artists, weary souls lingering in the shadow of cold disdain! In
our self- centered century, what inspiration do we offer them? The past may well look with pity at the poverty of our
civilisation; the future will laugh at the barrenness of our art. We are destroying the beautiful in life. Would that some
great wizard might from the stem of society shape a mighty harp whose strings would resound to the touch of genius.
CHAPTER VI
Flowers
In the trembling grey of a spring dawn, when the birds were whispering in mysterious cadence among the trees, have
you not felt that they were talking to their mates about the flowers? Surely with mankind the appreciation of flowers must
have been coeval with the poetry of love. Where better than in a flower, sweet in its unconsciousness, fragrant because
of its silence, can we image the unfolding of a virgin soul? The primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden
thereby transcended the brute. He became human in thus rising above the crude necessities of nature. He entered the
realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless.
In joy or sadness, flowers are our constant friends. We eat, drink, sing, dance, and flirt with them. We wed and christen
with flowers. We dare not die without them. We have worshipped with the lily, we have meditated with the lotus, we have
charged in battle array with the rose and the chrysanthemum. We have even attempted to speak in the language of
flowers. How could we live without them? It frightens on to conceive of a world bereft of their presence. What solace do
they not bring to the bedside of the sick, what a light of bliss to the darkness of weary spirits? Their serene tenderness
restores to us our waning confidence in the universe even as the intent gaze of a beautiful child recalls our lost hopes.
When we are laid low in the dust it is they who linger in sorrow over our graves.
Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact that in spite of our companionship with flowers we have not risen very far above
the brute. Scratch the sheepskin and the wolf within us will soon show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an
animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal
because he has never ceased to be an animal. Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing sacred except our own desires.
Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes; but one altar is forever preserved, that whereon we burn incense to
the supreme idol,--ourselves. Our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make
sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What
atrocities do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement!
Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of
the dews and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you
may in the gentle breezes of summer. To-morrow a ruthless hand will close around your throats. You will be wrenched,
torn asunder limb by limb, and borne away from your quiet homes. The wretch, she may be passing fair. She may say
how lovely you are while her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be kindness? It may be your fate to
be imprisoned in the hair of one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the buttonhole of one who would not
dare to look you in the face were you a man. It may even be your lot to be confined in some narrow vessel with only
stagnant water to quench the maddening thirst that warns of ebbing life.
Flowers, if you were in the land of the Mikado, you might some time meet a dread personage armed with scissors and a
tiny saw. He would call himself a Master of Flowers. He would claim the rights of a doctor and you would instinctively hate
him, for you know a doctor always seeks to prolong the troubles of his victims. He would cut, bend, and twist you into
those impossible positions which he thinks it proper that you should assume. He would contort your muscles and
dislocate your bones like any osteopath. He would burn you with red-hot coals to stop your bleeding, and thrust wires
into you to assist your circulation. He would diet you with salt, vinegar, alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling water would
be poured on your feet when you seemed ready to faint. It would be his boast that he could keep life within you for two or
more weeks longer than would have been possible without his treatment. Would you not have preferred to have been
killed at once when you were first captured? What were the crimes you must have committed during your past
incarnation to warrant such punishment in this?
The wanton waste of flowers among Western communities is even more appalling than the way they are treated by
Eastern Flower Masters. The number of flowers cut daily to adorn the ballrooms and banquet-tables of Europe and
America, to be thrown away on the morrow, must be something enormous; if strung together they might garland a
continent. Beside this utter carelessness of life, the guilt of the Flower-Master becomes insignificant. He, at least,
respects the economy of nature, selects his victims with careful foresight, and after death does honour to their remains.
In the West the display of flowers seems to be a part of the pageantry of wealth,--the fancy of a moment. Whither do they
all go, these flowers, when the revelry is over? Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorselessly flung
upon a dung heap.
Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight
when brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal
whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the
butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our
hardened ears. We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our
cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours. Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming
scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they
have migrated to heaven.
Much may be said in favor of him who cultivates plants. The man of the pot is far more humane than he of the scissors.
We watch with delight his concern about water and sunshine, his feuds with parasites, his horror of frosts, his anxiety
when the buds come slowly, his rapture when the leaves attain their lustre. In the East the art of floriculture is a very
ancient one, and the loves of a poet and his favorite plant have often been recorded in story and song. With the
development of ceramics during the Tang and Sung dynasties we hear of wonderful receptacles made to hold plants, not
pots, but jewelled palaces. A special attendant was detailed to wait upon each flower and to wash its leaves with soft
brushes made of rabbit hair. It has been written ["Pingtse", by Yuenchunlang] that the peony should be bathed by a
handsome maiden in full costume, that a winter-plum should be watered by a pale, slender monk. In Japan, one of the
most popular of the No-dances, the Hachinoki, composed during the Ashikaga period, is based upon the story of an
impoverished knight, who, on a freezing night, in lack of fuel for a fire, cuts his cherished plants in order to entertain a
wandering friar. The friar is in reality no other than Hojo-Tokiyori, the Haroun-Al-Raschid of our tales, and the sacrifice is
not without its reward. This opera never fails to draw tears from a Tokio audience even to-day.
Great precautions were taken for the preservation of delicate blossoms. Emperor Huensung, of the Tang Dynasty, hung
tiny golden bells on the branches in his garden to keep off the birds. He it was who went off in the springtime with his
court musicians to gladden the flowers with soft music. A quaint tablet, which tradition ascribes to Yoshitsune, the hero of
our Arthurian legends, is still extant in one of the Japanese monasteries [Sumadera, near Kobe]. It is a notice put up for
the protection of a certain wonderful plum-tree, and appeals to us with the grim humour of a warlike age. After referring
to the beauty of the blossoms, the inscription says: "Whoever cuts a single branch of this tree shall forfeit a finger
therefor." Would that such laws could be enforced nowadays against those who wantonly destroy flowers and mutilate
objects of art!
Yet even in the case of pot flowers we are inclined to suspect the selfishness of man. Why take the plants from their
homes and ask them to bloom mid strange surroundings? Is it not like asking the birds to sing and mate cooped up in
cages? Who knows but that the orchids feel stifled by the artificial heat in your conservatories and hopelessly long for a
glimpse of their own Southern skies?
The ideal lover of flowers is he who visits them in their native haunts, like Taoyuenming [all celebrated Chinese poets
and philosophers], who sat before a broken bamboo fence in converse with the wild chrysanthemum, or Linwosing,
losing himself amid mysterious fragrance as he wandered in the twilight among the plum-blossoms of the Western Lake.
'Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus. It was the same spirit
which moved the Empress Komio, one of our most renowned Nara sovereigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my hand will
defile thee, O flower! Standing in the meadows as thou art, I offer thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the present, of the
future."
However, let us not be too sentimental. Let us be less luxurious but more magnificent. Said Laotse: "Heaven and earth
are pitiless." Said Kobodaishi: "Flow, flow, flow, flow, the current of life is ever onward. Die, die, die, die, death comes to
all." Destruction faces us wherever we turn. Destruction below and above, destruction behind and before. Change is the
only Eternal,--why not as welcome Death as Life? They are but counterparts one of the other,--The Night and Day of
Brahma. Through the disintegration of the old, re-creation becomes possible. We have worshipped Death, the relentless
goddess of mercy, under many different names. It was the shadow of the All-devouring that the Gheburs greeted in the
fire. It is the icy purism of the sword-soul before which Shinto-Japan prostrates herself even to-day. The mystic fire
consumes our weakness, the sacred sword cleaves the bondage of desire. From our ashes springs the phoenix of
celestial hope, out of the freedom comes a higher realisation of manhood.
Why not destroy flowers if thereby we can evolve new forms ennobling the world idea? We only ask them to join in our
sacrifice to the beautiful. We shall atone for the deed by consecrating ourselves to Purity and Simplicity. Thus reasoned
the tea-masters when they established the Cult of Flowers.
Anyone acquainted with the ways of our tea- and flower-masters must have noticed the religious veneration with which
they regard flowers. They do not cull at random, but carefully select each branch or spray with an eye to the artistic
composition they have in mind. They would be ashamed should they chance to cut more than were absolutely
necessary. It may be remarked in this connection that they always associate the leaves, if there be any, with the flower,
for the object is to present the whole beauty of plant life. In this respect, as in many others, their method differs from that
pursued in Western countries. Here we are apt to see only the flower stems, heads as it were, without body, stuck
promiscuously into a vase.
When a tea-master has arranged a flower to his satisfaction he will place it on the tokonoma, the place of honour in a
Japanese room. Nothing else will be placed near it which might interfere with its effect, not even a painting, unless there
be some special aesthetic reason for the combination. It rests there like an enthroned prince, and the guests or disciples
on entering the room will salute it with a profound bow before making their addresses to the host. Drawings from
masterpieces are made and published for the edification of amateurs. The amount of literature on the subject is quite
voluminous. When the flower fades, the master tenderly consigns it to the river or carefully buries it in the ground.
Monuments are sometimes erected to their memory.
The birth of the Art of Flower Arrangement seems to be simultaneous with that of Teaism in the fifteenth century. Our
legends ascribe the first flower arrangement to those early Buddhist saints who gathered the flowers strewn by the storm
and, in their infinite solicitude for all living things, placed them in vessels of water. It is said that Soami, the great painter
and connoisseur of the court of Ashikaga- Yoshimasa, was one of the earliest adepts at it. Juko, the tea-master, was one
of his pupils, as was also Senno, the founder of the house of Ikenobo, a family as illustrious in the annals of flowers as
was that of the Kanos in painting. With the perfecting of the tea-ritual under Rikiu, in the latter part of the sixteenth
century, flower arrangement also attains its full growth. Rikiu and his successors, the celebrated Ota- wuraka,
Furuka-Oribe, Koyetsu, Kobori-Enshiu, Katagiri- Sekishiu, vied with each other in forming new combinations. We must
remember, however, that the flower-worship of the tea-masters formed only a part of their aesthetic ritual, and was not a
distinct religion by itself. A flower arrangement, like the other works of art in the tea-room, was subordinated to the total
scheme of decoration. Thus Sekishiu ordained that white plum blossoms should not be made use of when snow lay in
the garden. "Noisy" flowers were relentlessly banished from the tea-room. A flower arrangement by a tea-master loses its
significance if removed from the place for which it was originally intended, for its lines and proportions have been
specially worked out with a view to its surroundings.
The adoration of the flower for its own sake begins with the rise of "Flower-Masters," toward the middle of the
seventeenth century. It now becomes independent of the tea-room and knows no law save that the vase imposes on it.
New conceptions and methods of execution now become possible, and many were the principles and schools resulting
therefrom. A writer in the middle of the last century said he could count over one hundred different schools of flower
arrangement. Broadly speaking, these divide themselves into two main branches, the Formalistic and the Naturalesque.
The Formalistic schools, led by the Ikenobos, aimed at a classic idealism corresponding to that of the
Kano-academicians. We possess records of arrangements by the early masters of the school which almost reproduce
the flower paintings of Sansetsu and Tsunenobu. The Naturalesque school, on the other hand, accepted nature as its
model, only imposing such modifications of form as conduced to the expression of artistic unity. Thus we recognise in its
works the same impulses which formed the Ukiyoe and Shijo schools of painting.
It would be interesting, had we time, to enter more fully than it is now possible into the laws of composition and detail
formulated by the various flower-masters of this period, showing, as they would, the fundamental theories which
governed Tokugawa decoration. We find them referring to the Leading Principle (Heaven), the Subordinate Principle
(Earth), the Reconciling Principle (Man), and any flower arrangement which did not embody these principles was
considered barren and dead. They also dwelt much on the importance of treating a flower in its three different aspects,
the Formal, the Semi-Formal, and the Informal. The first might be said to represent flowers in the stately costume of the
ballroom, the second in the easy elegance of afternoon dress, the third in the charming deshabille of the boudoir.
Our personal sympathies are with the flower-arrangements of the tea-master rather than with those of the flower-master.
The former is art in its proper setting and appeals to us on account of its true intimacy with life. We should like to call this
school the Natural in contradistinction to the Naturalesque and Formalistic schools. The tea-master deems his duty
ended with the selection of the flowers, and leaves them to tell their own story. Entering a tea-room in late winter, you
may see a slender spray of wild cherries in combination with a budding camellia; it is an echo of departing winter coupled
with the prophecy of spring. Again, if you go into a noon-tea on some irritatingly hot summer day, you may discover in
the darkened coolness of the tokonoma a single lily in a hanging vase; dripping with dew, it seems to smile at the
foolishness of life.
A solo of flowers is interesting, but in a concerto with painting and sculpture the combination becomes entrancing.
Sekishiu once placed some water-plants in a flat receptacle to suggest the vegetation of lakes and marshes, and on the
wall above he hung a painting by Soami of wild ducks flying in the air. Shoha, another tea-master, combined a poem on
the Beauty of Solitude by the Sea with a bronze incense burner in the form of a fisherman's hut and some wild flowers of
the beach. One of the guests has recorded that he felt in the whole composition the breath of waning autumn.
Flower stories are endless. We shall recount but one more. In the sixteenth century the morning-glory was as yet a rare
plant with us. Rikiu had an entire garden planted with it, which he cultivated with assiduous care. The fame of his
convulvuli reached the ear of the Taiko, and he expressed a desire to see them, in consequence of which Rikiu invited
him to a morning tea at his house. On the appointed day Taiko walked through the garden, but nowhere could he see
any vestige of the convulvus. The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand. With sullen anger
the despot entered the tea-room, but a sight waited him there which completely restored his humour. On the tokonoma,
in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single morning-glory--the queen of the whole garden!
In such instances we see the full significance of the Flower Sacrifice. Perhaps the flowers appreciate the full significance
of it. They are not cowards, like men. Some flowers glory in death--certainly the Japanese cherry blossoms do, as they
freely surrender themselves to the winds. Anyone who has stood before the fragrant avalanche at Yoshino or
Arashiyama must have realized this. For a moment they hover like bejewelled clouds and dance above the crystal
streams; then, as they sail away on the laughing waters, they seem to say: "Farewell, O Spring! We are on to eternity."
CHAPTER VII
Tea-Masters
In religion the Future is behind us. In art the present is the eternal. The tea-masters held that real appreciation of art is
only possible to those who make of it a living influence. Thus they sought to regulate their daily life by the high standard
of refinement which obtained in the tea-room. In all circumstances serenity of mind should be maintained, and
conversation should be conducted as never to mar the harmony of the surroundings. The cut and color of the dress, the
poise of the body, and the manner of walking could all be made expressions of artistic personality. These were matters
not to be lightly ignored, for until one has made himself beautiful he has no right to approach beauty. Thus the
tea-master strove to be something more than the artist,--art itself. It was the Zen of aestheticism. Perfection is
everywhere if we only choose to recognise it. Rikiu loved to quote an old poem which says: "To those who long only for
flowers, fain would I show the full-blown spring which abides in the toiling buds of snow-covered hills."
Manifold indeed have been the contributions of the tea-masters to art. They completely revolutionised the classical
architecture and interior decorations, and established the new style which we have described in the chapter of the
tea-room, a style to whose influence even the palaces and monasteries built after the sixteenth century have all been
subject. The many-sided Kobori-Enshiu has left notable examples of his genius in the Imperial villa of Katsura, the
castles of Najoya and Nijo, and the monastery of Kohoan. All the celebrated gardens of Japan were laid out by the
tea-masters. Our pottery would probably never have attained its high quality of excellence if the tea-masters had not lent
it to their inspiration, the manufacture of the utensils used in the tea-ceremony calling forth the utmost expenditure of
ingenuity on the parts of our ceramists. The Seven Kilns of Enshiu are well known to all students of Japanese pottery.
many of our textile fabrics bear the names of tea-masters who conceived their color or design. It is impossible, indeed, to
find any department of art in which the tea-masters have not left marks of their genius. In painting and lacquer it seems
almost superfluous to mention the immense services they have rendered. One of the greatest schools of painting owes
its origin to the tea-master Honnami-Koyetsu, famed also as a lacquer artist and potter. Beside his works, the splendid
creation of his grandson, Koho, and of his grand-nephews, Korin and Kenzan, almost fall into the shade. The whole
Korin school, as it is generally designated, is an expression of Teaism. In the broad lines of this school we seem to find
the vitality of nature herself.
Great as has been the influence of the tea-masters in the field of art, it is as nothing compared to that which they have
exerted on the conduct of life. Not only in the usages of polite society, but also in the arrangement of all our domestic
details, do we feel the presence of the tea-masters. Many of our delicate dishes, as well as our way of serving food, are
their inventions. They have taught us to dress only in garments of sober colors. They have instructed us in the proper
spirit in which to approach flowers. They have given emphasis to our natural love of simplicity, and shown us the beauty
of humility. In fact, through their teachings tea has entered the life of the people.
Those of us who know not the secret of properly regulating our own existence on this tumultuous sea of foolish troubles
which we call life are constantly in a state of misery while vainly trying to appear happy and contented. We stagger in the
attempt to keep our moral equilibrium, and see forerunners of the tempest in every cloud that floats on the horizon. Yet
there is joy and beauty in the roll of billows as they sweep outward toward eternity. Why not enter into their spirit, or, like
Liehtse, ride upon the hurricane itself?
He only who has lived with the beautiful can die beautifully. The last moments of the great tea-masters were as full of
exquisite refinement as had been their lives. Seeking always to be in harmony with the great rhythm of the universe, they
were ever prepared to enter the unknown. The "Last Tea of Rikiu" will stand forth forever as the acme of tragic grandeur.
Long had been the friendship between Rikiu and the Taiko- Hideyoshi, and high the estimation in which the great warrior
held the tea-master. But the friendship of a despot is ever a dangerous honour. It was an age rife with treachery, and
men trusted not even their nearest kin. Rikiu was no servile courtier, and had often dared to differ in argument with his
fierce patron. Taking advantage of the coldness which had for some time existed between the Taiko and Rikiu, the
enemies of the latter accused him of being implicated in a conspiracy to poison the despot. It was whispered to Hideyoshi
that the fatal potion was to be administered to him with a cup of the green beverage prepared by the tea-master. With
Hideyoshi suspicion was sufficient ground for instant execution, and there was no appeal from the will of the angry ruler.
One privilege alone was granted to the condemned-- the honor of dying by his own hand.
On the day destined for his self-immolation, Rikiu invited his chief disciples to a last tea-ceremony. Mournfully at the
appointed time the guests met at the portico. As they look into the garden path the trees seem to shudder, and in the
rustling of their leaves are heard the whispers of homeless ghosts. Like solemn sentinels before the gates of Hades
stand the grey stone lanterns. A wave of rare incense is wafted from the tea-room; it is the summons which bids the
guests to enter. One by one they advance and take their places. In the tokonoma hangs a kakemon,--a wonderful writing
by an ancient monk dealing with the evanescence of all earthly things. The singing kettle, as it boils over the brazier,
sounds like some cicada pouring forth his woes to departing summer. Soon the host enters the room. Each in turn is
served with tea, and each in turn silently drains his cup, the host last of all. According to established etiquette, the chief
guest now asks permission to examine the tea-equipage. Rikiu places the various articles before them, with the
kakemono. After all have expressed admiration of their beauty, Rikiu presents one of them to each of the assembled
company as a souvenir. The bowl alone he keeps. "Never again shall this cup, polluted by the lips of misfortune, be used
by man." He speaks, and breaks the vessel into fragments.
The ceremony is over; the guests with difficulty restraining their tears, take their last farewell and leave the room. One
only, the nearest and dearest, is requested to remain and witness the end. Rikiu then removes his tea-gown and
carefully folds it upon the mat, thereby disclosing the immaculate white death robe which it had hitherto concealed.
Tenderly he gazes on the shining blade of the fatal dagger, and in exquisite verse thus addresses it:
"Welcome to thee,
O sword of eternity!
Through Buddha/
And through Daruma alike
Thou hast cleft thy way."
With a smile upon his face Rikiu passed forth into the unknown.
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