 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Mike Rosenlof. The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo The Cup of Humanity Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China in the 8th century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The 15th century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism—theism. Theism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sored facts of everyday existence. It inculates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the imperfect. It is 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 in as much 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 favorable 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 laborer to offer his salutation to the rocks and waters. In our common parlance, we speak of a man with no tea in him, when he is insusceptible to the serial comic interest of the personal drama. Again we stigmatize the untamed astheat who, regardless of the mundane tragedy, runs riot in the spring tide of emancipated emotions, as one with too much tea in him. The outsider mandated 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 drugs of 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 Chameleas 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 Lao Tse, and the ethereal aroma of Sakyumuni himself. Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are up to overlook the greatness of little things in others. The average Westerner in his sleep complacency will see in the tea ceremony but another instance of the thousand and one oddities which constitute the quaintness and the 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 civilized since she began to commit wholesale slaughter on the 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 T-ism, which represents so much of our art of life. Fain would we remain barbarians if our claim to civilization 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 is 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 organization. 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 hidden somewhere in your garments and often dined off a fricacy of newborn babies. Nay, we had something worse against you. We used to think you the most impractical 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 adapted 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 civilization. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they evince our willingness to approach the West on our knees. Unfortunately the Western attitude is unfavorable to the understanding of the East. The Christian missionary goes to impart but not receive. Your information is based on the meager translations of our immense literature, if not on the unreliable anecdotes of passing travelers. It is rarely that the chivalrous pen of 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. It's 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 not need to apologize for the contributing his tithe to the furtherance of a better understanding. The beginning of the 20th century would have been spared the spectacle of sanguinary warfare if Russia had condescended to know Japan better. What dire consequence to humanity lie in the contemptuous ignoring of Eastern problems? European imperialism, which does not disdain to rise the absurd cry of the yellow peril, fails to realize that Asia may 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 teacup. 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 traveler that after the year 879, the main source 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 16th century, the Hollenders brought the news that a pleasant drink was made in the east from the leaves of a bush. The travelers Giovanni Battista Ramosio in 1559, El Almeida 1576, Mofeno 1588, Tareya 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 Chinese Cha and by other nations Te, alias tea. Like all good things of the world, the propaganda of tea met with opposition. Heretics like Henry Seville 1678 denounced drinking it as a filthy custom. Jonas Hanway, S.A. on Tea, 1756, said that men seemed to lose their stature and comeliness, women their beauty through the use of tea. It's cost at the start, about 15 or 16 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 marvelous rapidity. The coffee houses of London in the early half of the 18th 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 chess into Boston Harbor. There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible and capable of idealism. Western humorists 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 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 the good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident. For teaism it 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 humor itself the smile of philosophy. All genuine humorous 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 protest against materialism, have to a certain extent also opened the way to teaism. Perhaps nowadays it is in our demure contemplation of the imperfect that the West and 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 Son of Heaven, triumphed over Shu Yong, 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 nights. 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 dragontailed, resplendent in her armor of fire. She wielded the five-colored rainbow in her magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese sky. But it is also 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 joined together to complete the universe. Everyone has to build a new 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 egoism and vulgarity. Knowledge is bought through a bad conscience, benevolence practiced for the sake of utility. The east and west, like two dragons, tossed in a sea of ferment in vain strife 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 sowing of the pines is heard in the kettle. Let us dream of evanescence and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things. 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 titan nere sesan. Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and heat, its hereditary memories to recall, its own method of telling a story. The truly beautiful must be always in it. How much do we not suffer through the constant failure of society to recognize this simple and fundamental law of art and life? Lichi Lai, a Tsung 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 paintings 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 the man heighteth 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 our favorite vintage marks the separate idiosyncrasies of different periods and nationalities of Europe, so the tea ideals characterize the various moods of oriental culture. The cake tea, which was boiled, the powdered tea, which was whipped, the leaf tea, which was steeped, marked 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, Tse, Chun, Ka, 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 4th and 5th centuries, tea became the favorite beverage among the inhabitants of the Yangsikyang Valley, but it was about this time that the modern ideograph cha was coined, evidently a corruption of the classic Tao. 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 their 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 Tibetans and various Mongolian tribes who make a curious syrup of these ingredients. The use of lemon slices by the Russians to learn to take tea from the Chinese caravan saris point 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 Lu Wu 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. Lu Wu, a poet, saw in the tea service the same harmony and order which reigned through all things. In his celebrated worth, the Chakin, the holy scripture of tea, he formulated the Code of Tea. He has been worshiped as the tutelary god of the Chinese tea merchants. The Chakin consists of three volumes and ten chapters. In the first chapter, Lu Wu treats 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 leather and boots of Tartar horsemen, curl like the doulap 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 Lu Wu's predilection for Taoist symbolism. Also, it is interesting to observe that in this connection, the influence of the tea on Chinese ceramics. The celestial porcelain, as it is well known, had its origin in an attempt to reproduce the exquisite shade of jade, resulting in the Tang dynasty, in the bluest glaze of the south, and the white glaze of the north. Lu Wu considered the blue as the ideal color for a 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 Song took to powdered tea, they preferred heavy bowls of blue-black and dark browns. The mings with their steeped tea rejoiced in light wear of white porcelain. In the fifth chapter, Lu Wu 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 best, and 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 dipper full of cold water is poured into the kettle to settle the tea and preserve the youth of the water. Then the beverage was poured into cups and drunk. Oh nectar! The filmy leaflet hung like scaly clouds in a serene sky or floated like water lilies on emerald streams. It was of such a beverage that Lao Tung, a Tang poet, wrote. The first cup moistened my lips and throat. The second cup breaks my loneliness. The third cup searches my barren entril but to find therein some 5,000 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 realm of 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 Chakking treat of the vulgarity of the ordinary methods of tea-making, a historical summary of illustrious tea-drinkers, and 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 Chakking must have created considerable sensation at the time. Lu Wu was befriended by the emperor Tai Tsung, 763-779, and his fame attracted many followers. Some exquisites were said to have been able to detect the tea made by Lu Wu from that of his disciples. One Mandarin has his name immortalized by his failure to appreciate the tea of this great master. In the Tsung dynasty, the whipped tea came into fashion and created the second school of tea. The leaves were ground to a fine powder and 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 equipage of Lu Wu, as well as the choice of leaves. Salt was discarded forever. The enthusiasm of the Tsung people for tea knew no bounds. Epicures vied with each other in discovering new varieties and regular tournaments were held to de-side their superiority. The Emperor Kai Tsung, 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 Tsung differed from the Tangs, even as their notion of life differed. They sought to actualize what their predecessors tried to symbolize. To the neo-confusion mind, the cosmic law was not reflected in the phenomenal world, but the phenomenal world was the cosmic law itself. Eons 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-realism. Wang Yu Cheng eulogized tea as flooding his soul like a direct appeal that its delicate bitterness reminded him of the aftertaste of a good counsel. So Tumpa 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 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 15th century. Unfortunately, the sudden outburst of the Mongol tribes in the 13th century, which resulted in the devastation and conquest of China under the barbaric rule of the Yuan emperors, destroyed all the fruits of Sun culture. The native dynasty of the Ming's, which attempted renationalism in the middle of the 15th century, was harassed by internal troubles, and China again fell under the alien rule of the Manchus in the 17th 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 last recall the shape of the tea whisk mentioned in some of the soon 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 methods of drinking tea is explained by the fact that Europe knew it only at the close of the Ming dynasty. To the later-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 and illusions, which constitutes the eternal youth and vigor 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 civilization, has known the tea in all three stages. As early as the year 729, we read of the Emperor Shomu giving tea to 100 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 Sai Cho brought back some seeds and planted them in Ye San. Many tea gardens are heard in the 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 Ye Sai 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 Kyoto bears still the name of producing the best tea in the world. The Southern Zen spread with marvelous rapidity and with it the tea ritual of the ideal of the sung. By the 15th century under the patronage of the Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, 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 latter China is comparatively recent among us, being only known since the middle of the 17th 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 Sun movement so disastrously cut off in China itself through the nomadic inroad. Tea with us became more than an idealization of the form of drinkage. 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 travelers could meet to drink from the common spring of our depreciation. The ceremony was an improvised drama whose plot was woven about the tea, the flowers, and the paintings. Not a color 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. End of Part 1 of The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo Part 2 Taoism and Zenism The connection of Zenism with tea is proverbial. We have already remarked that the tea ceremony was a development of the Zen ritual. The name of Lao Tse, 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 Kuan Yin, a well-known disciple of Lao Tse, 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 Zenism 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 Taoist and Zen doctrines in any foreign language, though we have had several laudable attempts. Translation is always 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 or the color of the design. But after all, what great doctrine which is easy to expound. The ancient sages never put their teachings in semantic 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. Lao Tze himself with his quaint humor 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, and the mode. These renderings are not incorrect for the use of the term by the Taoist differs according to the subject matter of the inquiry. Lao Tze 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, 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 Taoist. 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, Zenism, represents the individualistic trend of the southern Chinese mind in contradiction 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 Yangtzei Qiyang and the Huang Hou are respectively the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Even today, in spite of the 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 Tutan. 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 the other. In Lao Tzei and his followers, and in Kutsugen, the forerunner of the Yangtzei Qiyang nature poets, we find an idealism quite inconsistent with the prosaic ethical notions of their contemporary northern writers. Lao Tzei lived five centuries before the Christian era. The germ of Taoist speculation may be found long before the advent of Lao Tzei, 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 civilization, which accumulated with the establishment of the Chao dynasty in the 12th century BC, kept the development of individualism in check for a long while, so that it was not until after the disintegration of the Chao dynasty and the establishment of innumerable independent kingdoms that it was able to blossom forth in the luxurience of free thought. Lao Tzei and Shoushi, Chuang Tzei, were both Southerners and the greatest exponents of the new school. On the other hand, Confucius and 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 Taoists 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 the unchanged-less are but terms excessive of a stoppage of growth. Said Kutsugen, 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 never forgive others because we know that we ourselves are in the wrong. We are so conscious 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 is so ridiculous? The spirit of barter is everywhere. Honor and chastity. Behold the complacent salesman retailing the good and the true. One can even buy a so-called religion, which is really but common morality of flowers and music. Rob the church of her accessories in what remains behind. Yet the truths thrive marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap, a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honorable 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 the power of breaking through contemporary thought than in its capacity for dominating subsequent moments. Taoism was an active power during the Xin Dynasty, that epoch of Chinese unification from which we derive the name of China. It would be interesting had we time to note its influences on contemporary thinkers, the mathematicians, writers on law and war, the mystics and alchemists, and the later nature poets of the Yangtzei Qing. 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 conservationists of the six dynasties who, like the Zen philosophers, reveled 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 in 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 feign be on speaking terms with the delightful emperor who never died because he never lived. We may ride in the wind with Li Tze and find it absolutely quiet because we ourselves are the wind, or dwell in mid-air with the aged one of the Huang Huo, 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 art of being in the world. It deals with the present, ourselves. It is in us that God meets with nature and yesterday parts from tomorrow. The present is the moving infinity, the legitimate sphere of the relative. Relativity seeks adjustment. Adjustment is art. The art of life flies in constant readjustments to our surroundings. Taoism accepts the mandate as it is, and unlike the Confucians and the Buddhist, tries to find beauty in our world of woe and worry. The Tsung allegory of the three vinegar tasters explains admirably the trend of the three doctrines. Sakyamuni, Confucius and Lao Tse once stood before a jar of vinegar, the emblem of life, and each dipped in his fingers to taste the brew. The matter of fact, Confucius found it sour. The Buddha called it bitter, and Lao Tse 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 Lao Tse illustrates by his favorite 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 its roof and 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 of which it was made. Vacuum is all potent because all containing. In vacuum alone, motion becomes possible. One who could truly make himself a vacuum into which others might freely enter would become master of all situations. The whole can always dominate the part. These Taoist ideas have greatly influenced all our theories of action, even to those of fencing and wrestling. Jujitsu, the Japanese art of self-defense, owes its name to a passage in the Tao-Chi King. In Jujitsu 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 the masterpiece irresistibly rivets your attention until you seem to become actually a part of it. A vacuum is there for you to enter and fill up to the full measure of your aesthetic emotion. He who had 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 the stream in winter, hesitating as one who fears the neighborhood, 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 jewels of life were pity, economy, and modesty. If we now turn our attention to Zenism, we shall find that it emphasizes the teachings of Taoism. Zen is a name derived from the Sanskrit word Danya, which signifies meditation. It claims that through consecrated meditation may be attained to supreme self-realization. Meditation is one of the six ways through which Buddhahood may be reached. And the Zen sectarians affirm that Sakyamuni laid special stress on his method in his later teachings, handing down the rules to his chief disciple Kasyapa. According to their tradition, Kasyapa, the first Zen patriarch, imparted his secret to Ananda, who in turn passed it on to successive patriarchs until it reached Bodhidharma. The 28th Bodhidharma came to northern China in the early half of the 6th 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 Zenism seems to have affinity on one hand to the Indian negativism of Nagarjuna and on the other to the non-philosophy formulated by Sancharacharya. The first teaching of Zen as we know it at the present day must be attributed to the 6th Chinese patriarch Yeno, 673-713. Founder of the southern Zen so-called from the fact of its predominance in southern China. He is closely followed by the great Basso, died 788, who made of Zen a living influence in celestial life. Hakujou, 719-814, the pupil of Basso first instituted the Zen monastery and established its ritual and regulations for its government. In the discussions of the Zen school after the time of Basso we find the play of the Yangsikyang 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 Lao Tse and the Taoist conversationalists. In the Tao taking we already find illusions 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 Lao Tse have been written by Zen scholars. Zenism, 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 Zenism, 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 the flag but of something within their own minds. Hyaku-jo was walking in the forest with a disciple when a hare scurried off at their approach. Why does the hare fly from you, asked Hyaku-jo? Because he is afraid of me was the answer. No, said the master. It is because you have a murderous instinct. This dialogue recalls that of Soshi, Chuangse, 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 friends 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 encumbrance to thought. The whole sway of Buddhist scriptures only commentaries on general speculation. The followers of Zen aimed at direct communication 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 colored paintings of the classic Buddhist school. Some of the Zen even became iconoclastic as a result of their endeavor to recognize the Buddha in themselves, rather than through images and symbolism. We find Tanka Wosho 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 calmly rejoined the Zen. 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 that I am committing to sacrilege. Then he returned to worm himself over the kindling fire. A special contribution of Zen to Eastern 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 and Adam possessing equal possibilities with the universe. The seeker for perfection must discover in his own life the reflection of the inner sight. The organization of the Zen monastery was very significant to 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. Zenism made them practical. This is the end of part 2 of the Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo Chapter 4 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 recognized 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 Sukia does not pretend to be other than a mere cottage, a straw hut as we call it. The original ideographs for Sukia mean the abode of fancy. Laterally, the various team masters substituted various Chinese characters according to their conception of the Tea Room, and the term Sukia may signify the abode of vacancy or the abode of the unsymmetrical. It is an abode of fancy in as much as it is an ephemeral structure built to house a poetic impulse. It is an abode of vacancy in as much 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 in as much as it is consecrated to the worship of the imperfect, purposely leaving something unfinished for the play of the imagination to complete. The ideals of teaism have since the sixteenth century influenced our architecture to such a 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 Soyaki, commonly known by his later name of Riku, 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 Jouwo, a famous tea master of the fifteenth century. The early tea room consisted merely of a portion of the ordinary tea 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 Tsukiya consists of the tea room proper designed to accommodate not more than five persons, a number suggestive of the saying more than the graces and less than the muses. An anti-room, Mitsuya, where the tea utensils are washed and arranged before brought in, a portico, Machii, in which the guests wait until they receive the summons to enter the tea room, and a garden path, the Rōji, which connects the Machii with the tea room. The tea room is unimpressive in its 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 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 honored 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 eyeness by their grandeur and richness of their decorations. Huge pillars of wood from two to three feet in diameter and from 30 to 40 feet high supported by a complicated network of brackets, the enormous beams which groaned under the weight of the tile covered slanting ruse. The materials and mode of construction, the weak against fire, proved itself strong against earthquakes and was well suited to the climactic conditions of the country. In the golden hall of Houduji and the pagoda of Yakushiji, we have noteworthy examples of the durability of our wooden architecture. These buildings have practically stood intact for nearly 12 centuries. The interior of the old temples and palaces was profusely decorated. The Houdu temple at Uji dating from the 10th century, we can see the elaborate canopy and gilded Baldachinos many colored and inlaid with mirrors and mother of pearl, as well as the 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 in which color and exquisite detail equals the utmost gorgeousness of the Arabian or Moorish effort. The simplicity and purism of the tea room resulted from the emulation of the Zen monastery. A Zen monastery differs from those of other Buddhist sects in as much as it is meant to be only 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 room in which, behind the altar, is a statue of the Bodhidharma, the founder of the sect, or of Sakya Muni, attended by Kashiapa and Ananda, the two earliest Zen patriarchs. On the altar, flowers and incense are offered up in 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 Bodhidharma, 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 honor in a Japanese room where paintings and flowers are placed for the edification of the guests. All our great team masters were students of Zen and attempted to introduce the spirit of Zenism into the actualities of life. Thus the room, like the other equipments of the tea ceremony, reflect the Zen doctrines. The size of the orthodox tea room, which is four mats and a half, or ten feet square, is determined by the passage in the sutra of Vikramaditya. In that interesting work, Vikramaditya welcomes the saint Manjushiti and 84,000 disciples of Buddha into a room of this size, an allegory based on the theory of non-existence of space to the truly enlightened. Again the roji, the garden path which leaves from the machi 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 to 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 irregular irregularities of the stepping stones, beneath which lay dried pine needles and past 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 den of civilization. Great was the ingenuity displayed by the teamasters in producing these efforts of serenity and purity. The nature of the sensations to be aroused in passing through the roji differed with different teamasters. Some, like Rikyu, aimed at utter loneliness and claimed the secret of making a roji was contained in the ancient diddy. I looked beyond, flowers are not, nor tinted leaves on the sea beach. A solitary cottage stands in the waiting light of an autumn eve. Others, like Kobori Enshu, sought for a different effect. Enshu said that 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 inculate humility. The order of precedence having been mutually agreed upon while resting in the machi-ai, the guests by one will enter noiselessly and take their seats, first making obsesence 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 the water act muffled by clouds, of the distant sea breaking among the rocks, a rainstorm sweeping through the bamboo forest, or the sowing of pines on some far away 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 intent from the ceiling to the floor. The guests themselves have carefully chosen garments of unobtrusive colors. The mellowness of age is overall. Everything suggestive of recent requirement being tabooed save only the one note of contrast furnished by a 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 teamaster. One of the first requisites of the teamaster 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 seal of the Dutch housewife. Dripping water from a flower vase need not be wiped away, for it may be suggestive of due and coolness. In this connection there is a story of DQ which well illustrates the ideas of cleanliness entertained by the teamasters. DQ was watching his son show on as he swept through and watered the garden path. Not clean enough said DQ when show on had finished his task and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son returned to DQ. Father there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time. The stone lanterns in the trees all 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 teamaster. That is not the way a garden path should be swept. Saying this DQ stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden, gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn. What DQ demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the most beautiful natural also. The name abode of fancy implies a structure created to meet some individual artistic requirement. The tea room is made for the teamaster, not the teamaster 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 moved from one site to another in ancient days. The rebuilding every 20 years of the Issei temple, the supreme shine 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 such 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 15th century, however, the old idea became imbued with a deeper significance as conceived in connection with the tea room. Zenism with the Buddhist theory of effinescence in its demands for the mastery of spirit over matter, recognized the house as only 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 is 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 wonder why among the most progressive western nations architecture should be so devoid of originality, so replete with repetitions of obsolete styles. Perhaps we are now passing through an age of democratization 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 in a range 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 brickabrac 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 limited 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 houses 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 often been commented on by western critics. This also is a result of a working out through Zenism of Taoist ideas. 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 effort in realization to himself. Since Zenism has become the prevailing mode of thought the art of the extreme orient has purposely avoided the symmetrical as expressing not only completion but repetition. Uniformity of design was considered as fatal to the freshness of imagination. Thus landscapes, birds and flowers became the favorite subjects for the 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 selected that no color 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 lacquer. In placing a vase or incense burner on the Tokonoma care should be taken not to put it in the exact center lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the Tokonoma should be of a different kind of wood or pillar 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 arranged symmetrically on mantel pieces and elsewhere. In western houses we are often confronted with what appears to be 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 feels a curious conviction that one of them must be a fraud. Many a time have we sat on 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 can one consecrate himself to the undisturbed adoration of the beautiful. In the 16th century the tea room afforded a welcome respite from labor to the fierce warriors and statesmen engaged in the unification and reconstruction of Japan. In the 17th century after the strict formalization of the Tokugawa rule had been developed it offered the only opportunity possible for the free communication of artistic spirits. Before a great work of art there was no distinction between Daimyo, Samurai, and Kaminar. Nowadays industrialism is making our true refinement more and more difficult all the world over. Do we not need a tea room more than ever? This is the end of part 4 of the Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo. Recorded October 10th, 2006 in Olga, Washington. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit www.librivox.org The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo Chapter 5 Art Appreciation Have you heard the Taoist tale of the Taming of the Harp? Once in the Hori Ages in the Revene of Lungman stood a ki-ti tree, a veritable king of the forest. It reared its head to talk to the stars, its root 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 feigned would sing. The harp refused to recognize a master. At last came Pei Wo, the Prince of Harpus with tender hand he caressed the harp as one might seek to soothe an unruly horse and softly touched the cords. 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. A non were heard the dreamy voices of summer with its myriad insects, the gentle pattering of rain, the whale of the cuckoo, 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 rains and through the snow-filled air swirl flocks of swans and rattling hailstones beat upon the boughs with fierce delight. Then Pei Wo changed the key and sang of love. The forest swayed like an ardent swaying deep lost in thought. On high like a haughty maidens swept a cloud bright and fair, but passing trailed long shadows on the ground black like despair. Again the mood was changed. Pei Wo sang of war, of clashing steel and trampling steeds, and in the harper rose the tempest of lungmen. The dragon rode the lightning, the thundering avalanche crashed through the hills. In ecstasy the celestial monarch asked Pei Wo 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 Pei Wo or Pei Wo 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 Pei Wo 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 recognize stand forth in new glory. Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their color. Their pigments are our emotions. Their kairos grow, the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpieces 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 team-master, Kobori Enshu 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 wait with baited breath for its least utterance. An eminent soon critic once made a charming confession said he. In my young days I praised the master whose pictures I liked, but as my judgment 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 the 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 the masters. 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 bounds 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, unique, 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 the 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 to their fate. The great masters of both 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 to the modern common places? In the former we feel the warm outpouring of a man's heart 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 there is no crevice in his heart for love to enter and fill up. In art, vanity is usually 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 team masters guarded their treasures with religious secrecy and it was often necessary to open a whole series of boxes, one within the other 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 T-ism was in the state of ascendancy 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 favorite 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 the Daruma by Cesson suddenly takes fire through the negligence of the Samurai in charge. Resolved at all hazards to rescue the precious painting he rushes into the burnt 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 Cesson and plunges it into the gaping wound. The fire is at last extinguished among the smoking embers is found a half consumed corpse 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 a 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 unrecognized expressions of beauty. But after all we see only our own image in the universe. Our particular idiosyncrasies dictate the mode of our perceptions. The team masters collected only objects which fell strictly within the measure of their individual appreciation. One is reminded in this connection of a story concerning nobody in Shu. In Shu 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 Rikyu for his collection could only be appreciated by one beholder in a thousand. Sorrowfully, and Shu replied, this only proves how commonplace I am. The great Rikyu dared to love only those objects which personally appealed to him, whereas I unconsciously cater to the taste of the majority. Verily, Rikyu was one in a thousand among team 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 clamor for what is popularly considered to be 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 a worthy product in their own industrialism would give a 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 criticize a picture by their ear. It is this lack of genuine appreciation that is responsible for the pseudo-classic horrors that today 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 feign would we have cultivated it to a greater extent. The masters are rightly honored 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 value their achievements 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 19th 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 or 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 today 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 civilization. The future will laugh at the barrenness of our art. We are destroying art and 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 a genius? This is the end of Part 5 of the Book of T by Okakura Kakuzo. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit www.librivox.org. The Book of T by Okakura Kakuzo. Chapter 6 Flowers In the trembling gray 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 co-eval with the poetry of love. Where better than in a flower, sweet and unconsciousness, fragrant because of its silence, can we imagine the unfolding of a virgin soul? The primeval man in offering the first garland to his maiden thereby transcended the brute. He became human and thus rising above the crude necessities of nature. He entered the realm of art when he perceived the subtle use of the useless. Enjoy your 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 a ray 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 one 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 as our old 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 will soon show his teeth. It has been said that man at ten is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, 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 is sacred except our own desires. Shrine after shrine has crumbled before our eyes but one altar forever is 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. It is just that we have conquered matter and forget that it is matter that has enslaved us. What atrocities do we not perpetuate 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 do's and the sunbeams. Are you aware of the fearful doom that awaits you? Dream on, sway in frolic while you may in the gentle breezes of summer. Tomorrow a ruthless hand will close 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 at you in the face where 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 sometime 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 as 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 enables 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 honor to their remains. In the west the display of flowers seems to be a part of the pageantry of wealth, the fancy moment. Wither do they all go, those flowers, when the revelry is over. Nothing is more pitiful than to see a faded flower remorsely 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 bird 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. 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 to favor him who cultivates plants. The man of the pot is far more humane than he of the scissors. We watch his delight in concern about water and sunshine, his feuds with parasites, his horror of frost, his anxiety when the buds come slowly, his rapture when the leaves attain their luster. In the east the art of flora culture 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 Song dynasties we hear of wonderful receptacles made to hold plants, not pots, but jeweled 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 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 Noho 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 Tokiori, the Haroun al Rashid of our tales, and the sacrifice is not without its reward. This opera never fails to draw tears from a Tokyo audience even today. Great precautions were taken for the preservation of delicate blossoms. Emperor Wen Song 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. It is a notice put up for the protection of a certain wonderful plum tree, and appeals to us with a grim humor 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 therefore. 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 Daoyuan Ming, who sat before a broken bamboo fence in converse with the wild chrysanthemum, or Lin Wu Xing, losing himself amid mysterious fragrances as he wandered in the twilight among the plum blossoms of the western lake. Tiz said that Chaomushi slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus. It was this same spirit which moved the empress Comyo 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 Buddha 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 Lao Tze. Heaven and earth are pitiless. Said Kobo Daishi. 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 recreation becomes possible. We have worshiped death, the relentless goddess of mercy, under many different names. It was the shadow of the all devouring that the gebbers greeted in the fire. It is the icy purism of the sword's soul before which Shinto Japan prostrates herself even today. 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 realization 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 be beautiful. We shall atone for the deed by consecrating ourselves to purity and simplicity. We shall establish 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 call it 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 or be any with the flower, for their 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 honor in a Japanese country. Nothing 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. When a flower fades, the master tenderly consigns it to the river or carefully buries it in the ground. Monuments even are sometimes erected to their memory. The birth of the art of flower arrangement seems to be simultaneous with that of teaism in the 15th 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. Jukko, 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 Kanos in painting. With the perfecting of the tea ritual under Riku, in the latter part of the 16th century, flower arrangement also attains its full growth. Riku and his successors, the celebrated Oda Uraku, Furuta Oribe, Koyatsu, Kobori Enshu, Katagiri Sekishu, fied 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 it was not a distinct religion by itself. A flower arrangement like other works of art in the tea room was subordinated to the total scheme of decoration. Thus Sekishu 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 specifically 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 17th century. It now becomes independent of the tea room and knows no loss save that the vase imposes on it. New conceptions and methods of execution now become possible, and many were the principles in schools resulting therefrom. A writer in the middle of the last century said that he could count over 100 different schools of flower arrangement. Broadly speaking, these divide themselves into two main branches, the formalistic and the natural-esque. The formalistic schools, led by the Ikebonos, aimed at a classic idealism corresponding to that of the Kano academicians. We possess records of arrangements by the early masters of this school which almost reproduced the flower paintings of Sansetsu and Tsunenobu. The natural-esque school, on the other hand, as its name implies, accepted nature as its model, only imposing such modification of forms as conduced to the expression of artistic unity. Thus we recognize in its works the same impulses which formed the Ukiyo-e and Shijo schools of painting. It would be interesting had we time to enter more fully now than 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, and the reconciling principle man, and any flower arrangement which did not embody these relationships 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 dishevel of the boudoir. Our personal sympathies are with the flower arrangements of the tea master rather than 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 natural ask 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 tokenoma 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. Sekishu 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. Soha, another tea master combined a poem of the beauty of solitude by the sea with a bronze incense burner in the form of a fisherman's hut and some wild flowers on 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 16th century the morning glory was as yet a rare plant with us. Udikyu had an entire garden planted with it which he cultivated with a cityish care. The fame of his convalvuli reached the ear of the taiko and he expressed a desire to see them in consequence of which Udikyu invited him to a morning tea at his house. On the appointed day the taiko walked through the garden but nowhere could he see any vestige of the convalvulus. The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and sand with sudden anger the despot entered the tea room but a sight waited him there which completely restored his humor. In the Tokonoma in a rare bronze of soon 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 appreciated 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 bejeweled clouds and dance above the crystal streams. Then as they sail away on the laughing waters they seem to say farewell Ospreng we are on to eternity. This is the end of the Book of Tea Part 6 by Okakura Kakuzo.